Home Security Systems

[Brian]

What I was trying to say, but I had to end my thought before I was finished.

A good dog or three helps even if only as an early warning device.

A good steel framed door that swings outward, removing the big sliding glass door in the back.

Anybody have any cost-effective, wife-friendly suggestions for replacing the glass windows on either side of my front door with something stronger? Talked to one of those wroght iron design guys a while back but that seemed a bit expensive - we want to keep some sort of window there. Thought about frosting it, but that doesn't help much.

[funkymonkey1111]

Have you considered security film on the windows?

Anybody have any cost-effective, wife-friendly suggestions for replacing the glass windows on either side of my front door with something stronger? Talked to one of those wroght iron design guys a while back but that seemed a bit expensive - we want to keep some sort of window there. Thought about frosting it, but that doesn't help much.

[BigNick73]

Anybody have any cost-effective, wife-friendly suggestions for replacing the glass windows on either side of my front door with something stronger? Talked to one of those wroght iron design guys a while back but that seemed a bit expensive - we want to keep some sort of window there. Thought about frosting it, but that doesn't help much.

Search around. There's places where you can buy hurricane or security laminate/tint It goes on like tint but is designed to stop stuff from coming through the window.

Funky monkey beat me to it

[BigNick73]

For the systems, last house I had I DIYed it. It was pre-wired so I just ordered the gear, installed it myself, and got a local place to monitor it. If you go that route you can program it to call your cell if you want and you don't have to pay for monthly service.

I'm in a rental now so instead of spending all the time and effort on a full blown system I got 3 pan/tilt IP cameras strewn about. Small 3 bdrm house so front door, back door, and the main kitchen/living/dining room area are covered. I use blue iris for the monitoring. I can view and control them all from my phone and when motion is detected it uploads pictures to a remote server (in case I'm broken into and the computer is stolen). I also set it up to send me a text message with photo anytime it goes off while I'm away, and I can then pull the video clip from my phone. I highly recommend it.

[Sawin]

Anybody have any cost-effective, wife-friendly suggestions for replacing the glass windows on either side of my front door with something stronger? Talked to one of those wroght iron design guys a while back but that seemed a bit expensive - we want to keep some sort of window there. Thought about frosting it, but that doesn't help much.

Why replace it? Just put some clear plexiglass on the inside, with a sturdy frame/edge around it. They'd break the outer glass, and hit solid plexi, and wonder WTF?