I’m sure most of us are guilty of forgetting to arm our security systems at one point or another. We get busy gathering children wallets and phones as we head out the door, maybe you are talking to someone on the phone or late for work.
Fortunately for all of the busy and forgetful, our smart home lets us know when we have not armed our system. Generally it’s a simple text message saying “system was not armed when you left the house,” triggered by my phone exiting the geofence I created around my house.
Forgetting’s arm is more than just leaving your home potentially vulnerable to intruders, with today’s smart home rules arming your system can also mean turning down your thermostat, making sure your doors are locked, and turning off lights. It means keeping your home both safe and energy-efficient, so getting that reminder is absolutely critical.
I create two different arming reminders in my alarm.com account: time of day reminders and geolocation reminders.
A time of day reminder lets me know if my system was not armed a certain time that I choose. Mine is set for 11 PM. If I forget to arm my system before 11 then I get a text message reminding me to do so. (and if I remembered to do it before then, I received no such text message.) You can set these reminders for anytime you like, and create multiple reminders as needed. Perhaps you set one for 9:30am so you’ll get a text message if you forgot to arm your system when you went to work in the morning, or another at bedtime to make sure your system is secure while you sleep.
The other type of arming reminder is attached to your actual location. Using the Geo services Tab on alarm.com you can set up a perimeter around places like “home” or “work.” Then create reminders for specific actions when you enter or leave these geo-fences. For example, if you have a geo-fence 1 mile around your house and you drive away without harming your system, you’ll get a text message telling you “system was not armed when Jeremy’s phone left home” The system is even intelligent enough to know if multiple devices are within the geo-fence. In my case, I will only receive that text message if both my phone and my wife’s phone have left home.