Loading…
12
Switched to interior sirens after a false alarm fiasco last month
I always used exterior sirens on my installs. Thought it was the only way to scare off intruders. Then last month I did a job in a condo building in downtown Austin. The exterior siren went off during testing and the HOA manager called me screaming. Turns out the city has noise ordinances I never even knew about. That conversation convinced me to start using interior sirens with a strobe instead. Has anyone else run into trouble with exterior sirens in tight neighborhoods?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
sethc124mo ago
Stick with exterior sirens. Loud noise is the whole point of a security system.
5
the_henry4mo ago
Actually I gotta push back on that a little. Exterior sirens are great for scaring someone off right away, but they're not really the whole point of a security system anymore. The real value now is getting a silent alert to your phone or a monitoring service so you can actually catch the person instead of just making noise. Loud sirens just tell the bad guy to run away fast, and then you're left with nothing but a video of a blurry figure. Having both is the way to go - a quiet alarm that notifies you plus a loud one that hopefully makes the neighbor look out the window.
2
parker_campbell2mo ago
Agree with you now after fighting with my old ways for years. Used to be all about the noise and thought any other approach was weak. But @the_henry makes a real good point about catching people instead of just scaring them off. Had a job last summer where the exterior siren kept blasting and the neighbors just closed their windows instead of looking outside. All that racket did was give the guy time to get away clean. Switching to a mix of quiet alerts and interior sirens has actually worked better for my customers.
5