Tamás Ő.
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Last updated:
July 11, 2024
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Home security systems are indeed essential to keep those pesky burglars outside and increase your sense of security. The thing with these solutions is that they are expensive and are mostly meant to protect large residences. What about college students seeking adequate safety measures for their room? Or avid travelers who can’t install a whole arsenal of alarms every time they check into a hotel room? They need a solution that’s not only portable, but also simpler: this is where a door stop or door handle alarm comes into play. Setting up such a device is a piece of cake, not to mention it doesn’t require any advanced technical skills. But once set up, you can indeed have sweet dreams, because if burglars try to open the door during the night or while you are away, they’ll surely jump out of their skins when hearing the loud alarm.
The door handle alarm is a small portable device that can be hung from the knob on the inner side of the door. The device is fitted with a vibration sensor that immediately sets off the alarm when someone fiddles with the door knob. However, keep in mind that the nature of the sensor doesn’t allow it to be used on door knobs made of anything but metal, therefore other types of door knobs are out of question. When looking for such home defense solution make sure to pick one that offers adjustable sensitivity and a function that lets you set up a small delay after arming. By switching between low and high sensitivity, you can check for yourself what motions actually trigger the siren, while the delay function is important for preventing the alarm going off when there is no real danger around.
Now that you are familiar with the basics of the door handle-type alarms, let us recommend you three devices, which are all worthy of your attention on their own right.
The door stop alarm and the door handle alarm share many similar features. Both of them are meant to warn the owner if someone tries to open the door from the outside. They are also small, portable, easy to install and relatively cheap. However, there are some major differences when it comes to actually using them. If you happen to occupy a room that lacks a door knob (because it uses a keycard, for instance) or the handle isn’t made of metal, you should opt for a door stop alarm. But when it comes to sensibility, the door handle alarm is your choice, as it’s able to trigger the alarm even if the burglar is just attempting intrusion by picking the locks.
Naturally, door handle alarms are unable to fully protect your room from being emptied by wrongdoers. First and foremost, you must equip your door with a reliable deadlock which is also strong enough to withstand a forceful intrusion. Reinforcing your hotel room door during a vacation or business trip is not a practical option, which makes that the combined use of both a door stop alarm and door handle alarm at the same time may be your best line of defense. Both devices take up little space in your luggage, so why not pack both? As for dorm students, they should consider opting for a higher quality lock. To “upgrade” your door so that it can take even the hardest kick we recommend applying a heavy-duty strike plate on the door jamb.
Despite their obvious benefits and cleverness, door handle alarms could never replace traditional home security systems, and they are never meant to protect more than a single room. The main problem is that the alarm sound produced by these small little add-ons is only effective if you are staying in the residence or there is someone nearby on “regular watch”. In other words, the moment you leave the house, the door handle alarm loses its effectiveness. A full-on alarm system, on the other hand, forwards the distress signals to a monitoring team, who then dispatch the police without second thought. Furthermore, home security solutions also come with a more refined and complete arsenal of home defense solutions, such as glass break sensors, movement detectors and cameras, which can spot burglars who bypassed your primary defense line.
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