I once went out on a custom consultation call to visit a man who said his security system wasn’t working quite right. When I showed up, I encountered one of the most peculiar disasters I’ve ever seen when it comes to security system design. Let me tell you all about it.

This gentleman was a relatively wealthy person and he had a spacious and beautiful home. We talked for a little while and he informed me that he’d spent a large sum of money to have a “top of the line” home security system installed by an out-of-state company. However, it had not worked a single day since it was installed, he reported. Why? The answer was in the details.

Let’s zoom out a bit on this scenario to understand why the original system design was failing to meet his needs.

This gentleman lived out in the country and he had very poor internet. To compound this, he had a large house, so his internet signal through the house was very poor as well. Another important detail -- he raised very large dogs and some of them lived in his house. 

I very quickly realized the problems. There were motion detectors installed in almost every room in this house. Incorrect installation made this even more disastrous. When the alarm was set, every time a dog walked into a room, the motion detectors would trigger the alarm. The next problem was that many of the smart home devices in his home required WiFi to operate. In this large house, the signal was too weak to reliably communicate to those devices so lights, locks and the garage door controls were very unreliable. They also absorbed so much of the limited internet that even watching Netflix was impossible. 

Do you see the biggest problem, though? The system that was installed didn’t fit the house at all. It hadn’t been designed around the challenges in place, so it simply did not work. 

At ASI, we tout our intentional, systematic approach to security and smart home solutions. Every time we visit a new home or business, we look to build a system that fits that location; we don’t pull out a one-size-fits-all template and toss it up. We are also proud of our ability to find flexible solutions.

For example, we have answers to the situation I described earlier. Pet immune motion detectors and smart video cameras can be adjusted to know the difference between Sparks the beloved family corgi and Bill Baddy, the neighborhood hoodlum. Door contacts and glass break detectors can provide further assurance that your home is locked up tight. We also use special frequencies for our smart home devices that don’t tie up your internet and can reliably broadcast through your house. That way, your lights, locks and garage door always work as advertised -- at your control. 

You want and need a security and smart home solution that is better by design. The good news is, that’s all we do.