Home Security Gadgets & Reviews

If you’ve ever shopped for a safe or vault for your home or office, you might have noticed how drab everything on the market is. Black, gray, beige, white… that’s about it for color choices. Granted, you’re shopping for something to protect your valuables from fire and theft, so style shouldn’t be that important, but why can’t you have it all?

These colorful blue, red, and yellow safes are available in Japan from the Nakabayashi stationery company. Powered by batteries and with no sign of a floor- or wall-mounting system in place, I’m sure they’re not very secure in reality (any safe that a burglar can simply walk away carrying isn’t a wise choice), but it’s a neat idea. Maybe we’ll see some of the high-end safe makers coming out with trendy options in the future.

via LuxuryLaunches

Do you ever forget to close the garage door at night? Then in the morning when you leave for work, it’s sitting there gaping open, and you realize anyone could have walked into your garage (and probably right into your house, if you have an attached garage) any time during the night? Kind of creepy, hunh?

Well, it happens to the best of us. A way to make sure it doesn’t happen to you any more is to get a device such as this automatic garage door closer from SmartHome. The Autocloser-GA has “micro-controller technology, infrared light sensors and advanced software algorithms,” which makes it smart enough to realize when the door is open but you’ve left the area. It will close the door for you, so there’s no need to worry about an absent-minded moment compromising your home’s security. (The gadget comes with a disable button you can use for those times when you intentionally leave the garage door open.)

According to the site, installation is simple (you only need basic tools), so you don’t need a pro to do it for you. The Autocloser-GA costs $70 online:

Automatic Garage Door Closer

So, you want a safe to protect your valuables (documents, jewelry, passports, etc.), but you don’t want a big eye sore in your house. And maybe you don’t need a huge square thing that takes up a third of your closet. Sure, you could go for a between-the-studs wall safe, but an in-floor safe can be an even better bet.

The Sentry In-floor Safe is a cylinder that can be sunken into concrete as the floor as being poured (no way would a thief be able to get that sucker out) or added post-construction to a wood floor without requiring too much work. The lid lies flush with the floor, so if you put a piece of a furniture or a rug over it, no one will ever know the safe is there. Though it looks pretty small in this picture, the Sentry safe can actually hold 540 cu. inches worth of stuff, and it weighs a sturdy 28 lbs.

Available from Home Depot for $119.

It’s always a good idea to have some back-up lighting in your home in case there’s an emergency or the power just goes out in a storm. You can make do with candles and flashlights for a while, but it’s certainly easier to operate with more reliable light sources.

These battery-powered Peanut Emergency Lights come with Velcro strips that can be attached to any spot you want to light during a power outage (the lights can also be used for every day use to brighten up dark areas such as closets, deep cabinets, sheds, etc.). They’re small enough to fit just about anywhere. The emergency lights use LEDs, so they won’t burn out any time soon, and the batteries are easy to replace.

$24 gets you a set of 3 from MoMA Store.

Even if you haven’t experienced mail theft in your neighborhood, a secure mailbox just makes sense. Why take chances when you’re mailing out checks? And in this day and age, sometimes all it takes is for someone to snag a piece of your mail to perpetrate identify theft on you. That’s why locking mailboxes are smart ideas in any neighborhood.

Most secure mailboxes don’t look all that attractive though. They tend to be rather industrial and minimalist (nothing more than a stainless steel box that gets mounted on a pole or the side of the house). Fortunately (for those of us who care about curb appeal as well as home security), I found one company that makes stylish and contemporary boxes.

The Mailbox Dr. features custom-made locking mailboxes in a variety of styles. Basically they’ll create whatever you want, so you can get one that perfectly matches the design of your home. Check out the picture gallery on their site for ideas:

http://mailboxmd.com

If you have a house where the bedrooms are on the 2nd or 3rd floors, you should think about how you and your family would get out in the event of a fire or other emergency (such as an earthquake) that might render the hallway and stairs inaccessible. The obvious alternative is the window, but unless you’re Spiderman, flinging yourself to the yard from 10 or more feet could be as dangerous as the fire. This is why it makes sense to have fire escape ladders in each upper story bedroom.

You can get residential escape ladders that can be hidden away until they’re needed (then you secure them to the window sill and drop them down or expand them). This is a fairly insignificant expenditure that will make you feel safer in your own home. Remember to regularly talk to children and family members about what to do in a fire (if you get ladders, make sure everybody knows how to use them!).

You can get home escape ladders online, starting at about $75. Here’s one store that sells them:

Safe Home Products

A driveway alarm or monitor can be a handy device since it chimes when someone drives up to your house or comes up the walkway. It alerts you to a visitor before they’re actually on your doorstep (and if the alarm chimes but no one ever knocks on the door, you can check outside to see if something nefarious is going on). Installing a system can be a bit of a project, however, if it involves running a lot of wires. (Usually there’s the alarm outside and it has to be hooked up to an announcer inside the house somewhere).

This wireless “Driveway Patrol” should make installation simple though. It runs off batteries, so no wiring is required. It’s available from Prevent Security for $25.