What home improvement work did you do today?

I'd have to ask my wife what we pay for a subscription but I think it is around $10 a month. She pays all of our bills though so I'm not entirely sure on the cost.

 

One feature I like is having the door locks set up to turn off of the alarm when I put the code in to unlock them.

 

That sounds about right.

 

technology will never cease to amaze me. I'm still using a key to unlock my doors though. We do have one door on the house that has a keypad to enter a code that will allow access to unlock without a key. However, at times when it's really cold out the pad will register the code but the lock won't turn. I'll probably change that lock back to a simple keyed lock again.

 

I can't even get the keypad on our garage to work half the time

 

We have the Xfinity security and like it as I get notices on my phone for the cameras. We paid $$$ for the system a few years ago. I pay the extra 10 $ a month for video capture. All the doors and accessible windows have switches also. We have a relatively safe neighborhood but I like the phone notification when a delivery is put on the porch.

They don’t ring the doorbell anymore for deliveries. Wife orders a LOT of stuff on line. We did have a car with a runner jumping out and checking cars (at 5:30am) a few weeks ago. (Our vehicles are in the garage). My camera recorded the guy jumping out and checking the neighbor’s cars. I like the ability to view the cameras at any time also.

We also have a bare minimum Ring system. A couple of door switches, movement sensor, an indoor camera, 2 leaks sensors, and a listener to the fire alarm system. The insurance company paid 99% of the cost, as they discontinued the Hedge system support and discount. I liked the Hedge system but was buggy. Anyways, I basically have it enabled for the fire alarm listening, it will notify the fire dept if a fire breaks out. Hence the insurance incentive. The insurance company paid for the first year monitoring fee. I supposedly get a 5 % discount on the house insurance premium which would pay for the monitoring fee. I kinda like the system, but it does not cover the outside with cameras or windows unless we add to the system. I’ll probably keep it going for the insurance discount. One thing I don’t like is I cannot view the indoor camera unless the alarm is activated. Maybe I don’t have it set right…. Maybe in the future I’ll switch to a ring system only, but that will be $$$ for additional cameras and windows’ sensors.

 

Still on hard keyed doors here. If you want to get into my house, you'll need to manually pick the lock, which isn't hard to do. One of our IoT security teams (former employer was a huge MSS provider for Americas + EU + APAC) had several major name smart locks and smart bulbs in our office for 6 months and it was a running joke, even the interns they refreshed every 3-6 months were able to defeat the smart locks in under 1 day, then could repeat the results with any subsequent lock within a minute or so. Won't even get into the smart light bulbs. That was a joke.

Anyway, keyed locks for me. No smart bulbs or smart outlets. No cheap Chinesium smarthome stuff either, and in the event anything I use is sourced from there, it goes on a separate VLAN/wifi SSID than our trusted devices.

 

Well that settles it then. Back to keyed locks for that door. In theory we changed it so the kids could get in without having them lose a key. But you bring up some valid points.

 

I mean, it is what it is. I refuse to make the leap. We're in a high-density area, more people = more opportunity. Cities always have more opportunistic crime.

Our friends next door have a digital lock and nobody's tried anything hinky. We all have door jamb reinforcements, since kick-ins were really popular starting 2007-2008ish in my area, and still happen today. If they want in, they'll get in, I guess. I just feel like analog is more difficult. People (young ones especially) are great with technology, but hand them a tool, like a lockpick set, and they don't understand. "Does this work with Siri?"

I kid. Sort of.

 

What are these door jam reinforcements you speak of?

 

This is what comes to mind...



probably more stealth though. Guess the ATL needs something a lil different than what I'm used to in the mtns.

 

Totally get your philosophy living in the city. Laughed my ass off at your kids these days joke.

 

Strikemaster, which is similar to this (I think they're at the Strikemaster II Pro or something now): https://www.asafehome.net/PAGES/Safe-Homes-International-StrikeForce.html

Look, the reality is this: The only thing stopping an intruder from kicking your door down is the bullshit 1/4" screws holding the strike plates in place. If homebuilders would simply replace those stupid shitty little screws with a 3" - 4" screw that tied the strike plate into the door frame, your door would be 5x harder to kick in. It takes a single-kick door and turns it into a multi-kick door, enough it's going to draw attention, or injure a scumbag's limb.

All the Strikemaster does is take that same concept, but uses a sheet of steel up the strike side of the jamb, and every 6-8" it has a 3"-4" screw linking it to the jamb, making it virtually impossible for the jamb to split, thus denying access. When I was working hand in with APD as a communty liaison/crime watch rep in my community bitd, I saw so much footage of people trying to kick in Strikemaster'd doors, over and over again, even previously-kicked-in doors, and they couldn't do it. They either walked away, or kicked/smashed in a window instead.

Seriously though. Go pop one screw out of each strike plate (deadbolt, latch) on your door. If it's the crappy little 1/3" screws, get a few pairs of 3"-4" screws and replace the factory hardware. Then take just one screw out of each hinge in the door, and replace it with the longer screws. Your door will break before it gives.

There are more stout products out there, like Door Jamb Armor. But Strikemaster works plenty.

That said, we don't really have the issue. It was really bad in my area, and friends down on FL were telling me it was bad down there (Tampa, Orlando, Jax) also, starting around 2007-2008 when the market went down the shitter. It started to taper off 2013-2014. It's the main reason I put cameras on my house originally, and I've had 'em on ever since. Thankfully, never needed to use them.

 

Actually, these were pretty common back in those days also.

$45 Master Lock White Compact Door Stopper Folding Security Bar, Adjustable from 25-1/2 to 43-1/2"es Long for Hinged and Sliding Doors, Door Barricade, Pack of 2, 270EC2

https://www.amazon.com/Master-Lock-Adjustable-Barricade-270EC2/dp/B0BJ12T27J/

While I know kick-ins still happen periodically, seems to be mostly in the poorer neighborhoods to the south. Crooks won't target my neighborhood much anymore. They still hit cars when people leave stuff in them. They'll still steal packages off some porches, if you don't have a fence. But at this point, my neighborhood has flipped radically (I couldn't afford to buy here again if we sold tomorrow), and scouts always look for houses w/o video doorbells from the street while walking through the neighborhood. If there are lots of video doorbells, they go elsewhere.

 

I ended up putting a keypad combination lock on the front door as I had some surgery earlier this year. If I had a problem and could not get to the door to unlock it, I could give them the combination when calling in 911 call. Wife and sister in law recommended the change. it’s a non Internet device so no hacking as far as I know. That and camera doorbell helps.

Like most we normally go thru the garage but if the garage access door to the house is locked, which it is at night, the keypad on the front door is the only way in.

 

Oh crap, speaking of hacking, I helped a friend the last few days whose LastPass was somehow hacked into and hackers were getting into all her accounts using the credentials in her vault. I thought it was something she f'ed up at first, and she knew my past professional life, so she called me. We were on the phone w/LastPass support asking how the hell the attackers were able to get her LastPass credentials because I literally found no traces of anything, trojan, RAT, malware, nothing, and their support couldn't say anything except "change your password, your system must be compromised".

Well, it wasn't: https://www.tomsguide.com/computing...-in-massive-hack-attack-what-you-need-to-know

tl;dr - if you use LastPass, and you haven't changed your password since the 2022 breach, and that wasn't enough to scare you away from them, or you haven't changed your key vault password in the last 72 hours, you need to change it ASAP.

 

Yikes, the last pass was a fiasco.
Cybersecurity is a complex subject and most of the current knowledge is not readily available to effectively safeguard it imo. For kicks I took a Cybersecurity class that was offered via a large company that I retired from. I followed along in the one day class but barely. Being able to hack into class members phone that was password protected as a “project” makes you realize how vulnerable we are. My work was a variety of electronic, computer, software, wireless testing programs for 45 years. So I do have some knowledge of electronics and software….but…I have gotten to the point that I do not answer any phone, text or email unless I know who is calling, If it’s important they will leave a voicemail or reach me in a known process.
I think this “money in the cloud” and cyber money is too risky for me.

 

Now working on finishing off the pergola cover.

 

SAME HERE BUT ABOUT A WEEK AGO OUR POWER WENT OUTAND WHEN WE GOT HOME COULDNT GET IN THE GARAGE AND HAD TO WAIT ABOUT A HOUR TIL THE POWER WENT BACK ON SO WE COULD GET INTO THE GARAGE SO NOW WE UNLOCK OUR FRONT STORM DOOR AND CARRY A KEY FOR THE FRONT DOOR WELL AT LEAST MY WIFE DOES ! Sorry for the all caps but just noticed it

 

Another reason why I have a keypad on the front door. We had a neighbor who was looking for a ladder to get into a window on the second story as they locked them selves out. We lost power for 2.5 hours yesterday, and 22 hours a few weeks ago.

 

I will say, most of the new openers have a battery backup option. I do have one of the new encrypted-comms remote openers with a position sensor that lets us pop doors from a distance. I've been contemplating buying one of the battery backup packs for it. It's super rare for our power to go out, but I can think of a couple times. I just went and manually popped the doors from the inside, but ... still.

All of my infrastructure internally is on battery backup, so any time power goes out, the internet, all our wifi, all critical power-over-ethernet devices stay up for a solid 3-4 hours with the pack I've got in place. It's a solid setup. Then the alarm will stay online for days with all sensors functioning, keeping the house at least covered, and the alarm can callback over cellular. Our house isn't the low-hanging fruit most thieves are looking to get into. Risk isn't worth the reward, we live pretty humbly.

 

Stop yelling at me

 

Haha this is why I always keep a house key and primary car key in my wallet. Even with an immobilizer car key you can get a “dumb” version that can at least open the car door. I almost always use the garage doors but dont outside without my wallet, been locked out accidentally of my house/car way too many times (once in a blizzard with the engine running, never again lol).

 

Define "wallet"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bkDEVieAj4​

 

I have a new opener a MY Q but no battery

 

We might be related
lol