Home Security Monitoring Technology Taken to Another Level

In a press release issued by ADT home security system company on Wednesday, it was revealed that technological advances have made it possible for homeowners to afford and install the same high-level remote-viewing security access in for their homes that was once strictly the province of businesses and the extremely wealthy.

Home security systems have come a long way over the last 10 years.

This journalist remembers when he was an account executive and, briefly, a manager for a wireless, computerized home security system company in the late 1990s. In those ancient days, a computerized security system that had wireless components and did not need to check on your house by making a telephone call -- it was a direct feed from an independent monitoring station -- was an advanced piece of security technology that seemed like something out of Star Wars.

The windows did not need to be wired as they did for all other home security systems offered in those days. They were watched by wireless contacts. Wireless motion detectors, strategically placed, looked at the doors and main passageways of the home. If any unusual movement was detected in the home-or if the electronically advanced smoke detector went off-a professional monitor spoke directly through a speaker in the wall-mounted unit.

The homeowner could talk back to the unit. The security components could be remote-controlled.

As exciting as those state of the art security measures were in those far-off days of less than a decade ago, the newly developed system that is now being offered by ADT is even more so.

Now, professionally installed video cameras in one's home can let one look around or inside of one's home from virtually anywhere, anytime. And as one might expect in this day and age, the system interacts with the Internet.

The new system is called Safewatch Videoview.

"Homeowners are discovering that motion-sensing cameras can make busy lifestyles a little easier by providing customers with e-mail notifications of triggered events and the ability to look in on their homes at any time. All they need is an Internet connection to log on to an encrypted and secure, password-protected Web site, which can be accessed even through a corporate firewall. Only the customer can access the cameras and view the live or recorded video. They have total control of the system," said Tim McKinney, director of ADT's Custom Home Services, in the press release.

"Working with ADT, homeowners can customize the video service by predefining events that will trigger cameras to record video and then save it to be viewed by the customer, and only the customer, at a later time," McKinney added.

Sources of information used to research this news story:

ADT Security Services (PR Newswire), "ADT Safewatch Videoview Helps Homeowners Monitor Property From Anywhere at Any Time"