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Well, my neighbour got burgled a couple of days ago. Obviously, like Johnson from Peep Show, "I'm insured out of my arse mate" and I don't have any real sentimental items - though it would be a shame for my burgeoning collection of limited edition gold turntables to be nicked.

More than anything I would be happy to catch a burglar - so I was thinking about gadgets to catch a crackhead.

My initial googling suggests US people are crazy. Tripwires which pepper spray! LOLZ

I was imagining there are a couple of places in my house I could put very discreet James Bond cameras which constantly backed up video 24/7 for a couple of weeks, continuously over-writing - storing in the cloud somewhere so that even if they nicked the hardware it would be retrievable. Does such a thing exist you reckon?

Also, some kind of super tracking devices I could put in a couple of sneaky items (my PS4 perhaps) so that I could properly show exactly when and where an item went on the move.

Maybe I could just get more secure windows and an alarm system, but somehow its not quite as fun.

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Guest Symatic

secret cameras around the house cant be good. Do you really want footage of someone in your household picking their arse and sniffing their finger while theyre waiting for the kettle to boil?

 

Also, "the best defence is a good offence" so with that in mind you may want to go and rob some crackheads before they get to you :)

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Guest Symatic

or you could just put some micromachines on the ground and set up some paint buckets on string at the top of the stairs while playing videos of gangster movies to scare off anyone listening in at the door

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We had a "visitor" once. My Brother and I were sleeping on the first floor, when that no-live-having individual was entering our house. I don't know if a security would of helped catching that fucker. It would certainly have helped to keep him from entering, since these guys seem to do reconnaissance-work before they enter into a house. What also might help is a sticker you put on your letterbox indicating that the house is either guarded by a dog or that a security-system is installed.

 

Having your place entered/robbed ain't something you wish to someone. It's a traumatic happening.

 

I'll maybee will get a dog (my 15 month old babygirl is crazy for dogs it seems) and/or will invest for a security-system. But after beeing robbed already once, I don't think it will serve much. But it could help towards the trauma...

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I would take pictures of all your gear's serial numbers to increase your chance of recovery. Have you thought of getting a security system or at least one of the cheapie systems that blares a loud sound when the window or door is opened? A lot of times you can bluetooth sync these to your phone so it's active when you're away. Another possible is dropcam to video the face of perps inside or wifi outdoor cams. I'd personally prefer outdoor because then you might get the vehicle too. (my wife will not let me put up cameras tho b/c it's creepy). A loud dog (big or small) is always good IMO.

 

In reality no place is burglar proof so you generally have to decide what's the most important for you: recovering stolen items, deterring/running off a thief, or self defense. For me it's deterring with recovering a close second. The most important thing IMO is neighbors looking out for each other and then making your place look more trouble than it's worth since there are hundreds of easier targets around.

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That Manything app looks decent. I have an iPod touch I could run it off. If I can choose when to activate it and ideally run the feed to OneDrive instead of paying for a separate subscription that would be neat.

I fucking hate dogs, so that's out the window.

My research into proper tracking devices suggests they are all expensive and require subscriptions (like Lojack things for cars).

I've picked up a Nut2 bluetooth thing (like a TrackR or Tile). It's bluetooth so kind of pointless for any real tracking, but I could pair it with my old Nexus 7. Hide the Nexus 7 and then it will alert me if, for example, my PS4 moves out of range (put the tracker inside the case or something). Not sure that would actually help in the eventuality of it being nicked.

I've locked down my PS4 login and recorded MAC addresses. All my other gadgets need pin codes or some form.

Frankly I suspect when they see my limited edition VHS of renegades of rhythm on the shelf, they will know they dun fucked with the wrong dude.

Although I feel like I have loads of shit to nick, it's all fairly substantial in size or weight. They'd need proper transport around here, hopefully my neighbours would notice something like that.

I told my wife to quit her job to protect the house.

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You could always do what my neighbor does and put this on your front door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Altho I guess they'd peg it as a bluff pretty quick in the UK. Manything looks good for a close second.

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I fucking hate dogs

 

whut?! dogs are the best

Got Manything running. Really smart, British company too. I'll probably subscribe to the 7 day plan, constant cloud backup £3/month. Leave the iPod recording in my man cave when we are not in.

 

let us know how you get on with it, I've been wondering whether or not to do it myself

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Also, at my old work I was tasked with marking all of our studio equipment with SmartWater. It's basically a solution that is visible under UV light, and has unique micro ID chips in it.

 

http://www.smartwater.com/property-marking

 

http://thecrimepreventionwebsite.com/property-identification--marking-tagging-and-tracking/592/methods-of-property-marking-and-tagging/

 

 

Alternatively you could just mark all your equipment with a UV pen, does the same thing really

 

http://personalalarms.com/acatalog/Permanent_UV_Marker_Pens.html

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A raspberry pi with motion installed would work as well. You could easily write a script to upload the videos to dropbox or any other online cloud service. It also has streaming capabilities.

 

Here is a video on how to set it up

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I am sticking with Manything. £3/month for 1 camera with 7 day continuous cloud backup. Had no problems with running it. It's a good use of lots of technologies which just needed wrapping up in a neat package. The only slightly fiddly thing was setting up guided mode on the iOS device so that you can have the app running whilst the device is locked. They have a good FAQ on it and in reality it's not that difficult, but I wouldn't have known how to do it otherwise. Also, where I have it set up it is still too sensitive to noises etc. even on the lowest setting, which means I get a few e-mails a day saying motion / noise detected - and my iPod has just turned its flash on to illuminate and focused on nothing.

There is a beta for Android which was definitely a bit beta still when I used it, but if you have an iOS device definitely worth a trial.

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  • 4 weeks later...

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