Piper Home Security

I may have mentioned that two months back, our home was burglarized. That's taken me away from doing some of the things I want to do (writing, consulting, etc.), but I have found a "working" solution now. Here's the run-down:

Traditional, Central-monitored Security
Way back, we used to use traditional security through ADT, but we canceled it when it became more of a hassle than it was worth.

• The issue I had with the traditional, centrally monitored system was that we often had false alarm triggers. They would contact the police and the police would get upset for having to deal with non-issues.
• Door and window sensors may have improved since that time, but ultimately, even when triggered, there was no way for me to know for sure whether it was a real security threat if I was not at home myself.
• We would get calls asking us whether we would like to dispatch the police and wouldn't know if it was really a problem.

Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

And, in the name of privacy, it's not exactly like we wanted ADT to monitor a camera for us. A little too big brother for us, if they even allow that sort of thing.

Thus, since our break-in, we began to look into self-monitored systems with camera capabilities, as we felt they better served our family.

(Note: I have some technical chops -- not that any of the setup of these were super tricky-- but in case you're using any of this as a basis for your own setup)

We elected to go with Piper after exploring some other options.

Piper
They released in Jan/Feb 2014. Also very new, and so, still working out some problems and what-not. I've experienced very few problems and it is working well for us. So far, we love it.

Pros:

• Simple, unified unit - with camera and a few other sensors.
• My wife and I can both enable/disable the system and monitor the house from our phones (Canary allows the same)
• We can also work with some simple z-wave enabled devices, like floor lamps and door/window sensors (Canary has this as a stretch goal for now; Vera allows for this, with a wider array of testing across z-wave products)

Nit-picks (not really true cons in my book):

• My wife was unable to connect remotely at one time. That said, I had her kill the app on her phone and restart it and it worked fine.
• Like any of the above solutions, you may still need to do some configuration. Piper works with uPnP, but I didn't have this enabled, so I opened port forwarding on my own (not that complex).
• Only supports z-wave for light/plug switches and door/window sensors. Thus, don't have support yet for z-wave locks, thermostats, etc.

While the HD camera is not the best video quality in the world, it does have a unique fish-eye view that can be separated into four quadrants and zoomed in. The main gist for me is to be able to tell if there's a real problem more so than identifying the culprit.

Conclusions
At the end of the day, smaller, all-inclusive solutions like Piper probably work best for smaller homes. You can start simple and add to the z-wave accessories, as you see fit (as we have).

I see burglary deterrence as a multi-step process:

• Dissuade the burglars from considering your home - through signs, locked doors
• If they break in, have a warning method to scare them off (minimize theft)  - dogs, alarm sirens, etc.
• Immediately alert home owner of potential threat - notification of motion, sound, sensor trips to let me decide whether to call the local police.
• Help the police in capturing them - store recorded video, photos as evidence
• Third-level support: neighborhood watch, be friends with neighbors, trusted circle

Common sense and Piper can help with all of the above potentially.

At the end of the day, unless you want to spend a fortune sealing your home off like a fortress, if someone wants to get into your home, they will. You just want to dissuade, scare, monitor, alert, and be safe. You just hope your loved ones are not there when it happens and that the police can do their part to catch criminals.