Home Security Gadgets & Reviews

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 regularly come home to a dark house or have a room you walk into where there’s not a light switch by the door (or maybe you’re hands are just full of groceries or laundry baskets and you have a hard time fumbling for the switch), you might want to check out this motion sensing outlet plug from SmartHome. It plugs into a standard outlet, then when you walk by it, a passive infrared motion detector tells the lights in the room to flip on. The gizmo can even turn on appliances, if you’d prefer a fan or television to be fired up when you first walk in. Since the device plugs right into an outlet, there’s no need to wire anything.

The price for the motion sensor is $20:

SensorPlug Plug-In Motion Sensor

When was the last time you thought about your house numbers? You know, the little address plaque or painted numbers you have on the side of your house or the curb that tell people the address? It’s probably been a while. Clear house numbers are important, however, not just because they help the pizza guy find your place. In the event of an emergency, paramedics, police, etc. will get to your house more easily if the address is prominently displayed.

So, take a look at your numbers. Are they obscured? Faded? Hard to read at night? If so, it may be time to invest in a new paint job, or maybe even something like these faux rocks that come with address plaques attached. The numbers are done in a bright, large font that is visible from down the street. The realistic looking boulders are available in gray or brown from Plow & Hearth, starting around $45.

http://www.plowhearth.com

Unless you live in some miraculous town where the power has never been knocked out, you know it’s important to have flashlights (or at least candles) tucked away in case there’s a power outage from a storm or other emergency. These things happen infrequently to most of us though, and we don’t always remember to check the batteries on our emergency lamps and flashlights. This hand-cranked Garrity Power Lite would be a smart choice for anyone who wants to know they’ve got a flashlight if they need one without worrying about batteries and what not.

You just wind the crank by hand for a minute and that gives you an hour of light. If you need more than that, just wind again. It’s got LEDs instead of light bulbs, so it should be brighter than your average flashlight. Perfect for use during a power outage and to keep in the car, boat, or any place else you might need light and be stuck without power.

The flashlight is $13 from Amazon: Garrity Power Lite 3 LED Crank Light

Here’s a gadget for all you new mothers and fathers out there. For years, parents have been using those walkie-talkie style baby monitors to listen to what’s going on in the baby’s room. Now there’s a monitor that lets you go beyond that; the BabySense Infant Movement Baby Monitor is placed under the sleeping infant’s mattress. Highly sensitive sensors then monitor every movement including breathing. If the baby stops breathing, an alarm will go off to quickly alert you that something is wrong. For anyone who worries about SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), this monitor could provide some peace of mind.

The high tech baby monitor is available online for $130 from Dutch Guard.

Did you know that a home should have a smoke detector on every floor? And that those smoke detectors should have the batteries checked every month? If you did know those things, do you actually put them into practice? Well, with the new year coming up, it’s a good time to make some resolutions, and making your house a safer place for friends and family is always a good bet.

The Ademco wireless smoke detector makes installation easy (no wires so you don’t have to dig into the walls to install them), so if you’ve been putting off installing alarms on every floor because of asbestos on the popcorn ceiling or something else you didn’t want to deal with, now’s your chance to get safer without any hassle.

The smoke detectors cost about $100 (not too bad when you realize they could save your life…) and are available at several online stores, such as YourAlarmStore.