Honeywell Security Bars Protect Your Sliding Glass Doors
Monday, January 29th, 2007
For a lot of people, the main way they secure their sliding glass door is with a chunk of wood dropped into the slider at the base. That might help keep an not-so-ambitious burglar out, but it’s possible to jostle one of those free with a little determination. These Honeywell security bars aren’t much more expensive than that wooden stick, but they’re a big improvement.
First off, they can be made to fit the space exactly and snuggly (they can be positioned at waist level, too, so you don’t have to bend over to move it in and out of the door). Secondly, they have an alarm built into them. If somebody tries to break in through your sliding glass door, the bar will flash a bright light and sound an alarm, which will deter most intruders. The bars sell on Amazon for $12.
If you have a swimming pool, you may be concerned about the neighborhood kids getting in and hurting themselves while you’re not home to watch over things. Or maybe you just don’t want to allow potential burglars access to your backyard. 
If your outdoor lighting isn’t sufficient to brighten the path to the front door after dark (or maybe you just forget to leave the porch light on sometimes), you can trip, stumble, or just waste minutes fumbling to unlock the lock. This can be a double pain if you’re carrying a bag of groceries or something heavy and only have one hand free.
Gone are the days when you had to open safes with a rotating dial…. 53 left…14 right…48 left, or was it 84… Half the time you couldn’t get the thing to open even when it was yours and you knew the code (don’t worry; I had the same trouble with my gym lock). 
Here’s a handy gadget that’s more home safety (or just convenience) than home security, but there’s nothing wrong with concentrating on making a home safe. 
If you live in an area that’s prone to floods, hurricanes, or other wet and wild storms, you might want to consider a waterproof container of some sort to protect your personal documents and anything that relates to the ownership of your house, car, etc. That’s in addition to the usual home security concerns (you don’t want to make it easy for a burglar to walk off with your papers). Sure, you can get a safe deposit box for these kinds of items, but that will put a bill in your mailbox every month. Also, there’s the inconvenience of driving to the bank whenever you want to check on something.
If you want the peace of mind of a burglar alarm guarding your house, but you don’t want the hassle of remembering key codes and punching them in every time you walk in the door, you could try something like this wireless system. The 510050 Remote Home Security Alarm can be armed and disarmed simply by pressing a button on a remote, which is small enough to hang on your keychain. That means no complex combinations to remember. (Just don’t lose your keys.)
If you’re always losing your keys, or would just like to take your house into the 21st Century, you could spring for new door locks that don’t require keys at all. This knob can be opened via a combination on a number pad, so it’s just like punching in your ATM code. Enter the string of numbers that you choose as the code, and voila: the door opens.