Pitfall 2: An alarm without a loud outdoor siren

• A loud outdoor siren in the first seconds after someone sets foot in your garden deters far more than silence on site and an officer who arrives, say, 30 minutes later.
• Many subscription packages have no outdoor siren. Inside there is often only a buzzer by the front door, which is easy to sabotage.
• With our customers, the outdoor siren has already stopped more than 100 burglary attempts, without police.

A loud outdoor siren in the first seconds after someone sets foot in your garden deters far more than silence on site and an officer who arrives, say, 30 minutes later. A burglar wants one thing above all: undisturbed time. Noise takes that time away. Neighbours hear it, the burglar knows he has been seen, and he looks for a house where nothing happens.

That is why we work with outdoor detection: sensors in the garden, on the terrace or by the driveway. If someone enters the property, the outdoor siren goes off before he reaches a door or window. With our customers, more than 100 burglars have run off this way, without any police involvement.

What it feels like at 3 a.m.: Someone climbs over the gate. With a system without an outdoor siren, nothing happens: no sound, no light, no neighbour waking up. An alert goes to a call centre, which tries to phone you. With an outdoor siren, the whole property screams the moment he is in the garden.

• No outdoor siren: the largest subscription alarm providers leave it out completely.
• A buzzer inside: often in the keypad by the front door, and that keypad is quickly pulled off the wall.
• An alert to a call centre: which first has to reach you. That is what pitfall 3 is about.

You sometimes hear that on the doorstep. There is a rule, but it is meant for sirens that keep causing a nuisance. A properly set siren stops by itself after a set time, and you switch the alarm off remotely in the app. The real point is: no false alarms. That is why we place every sensor ourselves and tune it to your home.

An apartment has no garden. Detection is then at the front door, on the terrace and inside. A siren that wakes the whole building does the same job there: the burglar is heard before he can get on with it.

A burglar may try to jam the wireless signal to the siren. With AJAX the siren can be configured to go off at a high level of radio interference, or as soon as a device loses its connection. This is not on by default: it can be set up at your request. More in pitfall 5: jamming.

1. Is there an outdoor siren, and how loud is it? Have the number of decibels put on paper. A buzzer in the keypad is no deterrent.
2. Does the siren go off when someone is in the garden, or only once he is inside?
3. What happens to the siren if someone jams the signal?

Our starter kit includes an outdoor siren of up to 113 dB as standard. During the home visit we decide where sensors and siren have the most effect. More explanation: outdoor siren and jamming detection.