How Does Security Window Film Work?

Win­dow film is the self-adhe­sive poly­ester film applied to glass sur­faces, usu­al­ly as a ‘retro­fit’ appli­ca­tion, on home win­dows and com­mer­cial build­ings to enhance the secu­ri­ty, heat and cold, and appear­ance.
Here we’ve out­lined how secu­ri­ty win­dow film works and the cir­cum­stances in which it could come in handy.

Helps with Solar Con­trol

To begin with, there are dif­fer­ent types of win­dow film, includ­ing:

• Met­al­lized or reflec­tive films that absorb and reflect solar ener­gy
• Dyed or non-reflec­tive films that most­ly absorb solar ener­gy
• Ceram­ic or nanofilms that use high-tech com­pounds to deliv­er high per­for­mance

When solar radi­a­tion strikes glass that is pro­tect­ed with win­dow film, the film acts as a ‘sun­screen’ to block harm­ful UV radi­a­tion and reg­u­late the amount of light and heat pass­ing through the glass. The amount of light and heat reject­ed depends on the type of win­dow film installed as dis­cussed above.

Increas­es Safe­ty

Besides fil­ter­ing heat and light, safe­ty win­dow film is also used to hold the glass in place in the event of break­age. When nor­mal glass breaks, the chances of injury to a per­son or piece of prop­er­ty is very high. But with the appli­ca­tion of secu­ri­ty win­dow film to exist­ing glass, intrud­er per­me­abil­i­ty, excess dam­age and injury is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced.

In fact, there is exist­ing leg­is­la­tion regard­ing the use of safe­ty glaz­ing mate­ri­als in spe­cif­ic build­ing con­struc­tions. This leg­is­la­tion is meant to pro­tect peo­ple from bod­i­ly harm if they walk into a glass pane. The safe­ty film basi­cal­ly reduces and vir­tu­al­ly elim­i­nates injury from such impact, since the glass, though cracked or bro­ken, remains attached to the film, and is usu­al­ly still intact in its frame.

The film’s elas­tic­i­ty and ten­sile strength, com­bined with its high resis­tance to shear, sub­stan­tial­ly remove – if not com­plete­ly elim­i­nate – the abil­i­ty of an indi­vid­ual walk­ing through a glass pane.

There are many dif­fer­ent effects that can cause the glass to break. The type of event is what influ­ences the type and extent of per­son­al injury and dam­age to prop­er­ty. Some of the ways that glass break­age occurs include:

• Impact stress from fly­ing objects
• Mechan­i­cal flex­ing stress, such as that from strong wind
• Ten­sile stress, such as that from the weight of the glass itself
• Ther­mal stress due to the absorp­tion of solar radi­a­tion
• Twist­ing stress from the move­ment of the build­ing

Secu­ri­ty win­dow film can also be fit­ted to res­i­den­tial glass and slid­ing doors, espe­cial­ly in areas with chil­dren and oth­er high-risk areas. In com­mer­cial build­ings, the film can be used in retail stored to pre­vent a break-in. Oth­er­wise, the nor­mal glass would eas­i­ly break and col­lapse if a hard object was thrown towards it, giv­ing the rob­ber a chance to reach items inside and remove them. For­tu­nate­ly, the noise and time delay is suf­fi­cient to deter most would-be rob­bers.

as a sen­sor and can detect motion and cap­ture video, all of which will be sent along with the alert to the sec­ond phone. With Pres­ence, you can set up as many sen­sors (mobile phones) to mon­i­tor dif­fer­ent areas of your home.

iZon Wi-Fi Video Mon­i­tor

This is a tiny web­cam mount­ed on a dome base to allow tilt­ing for mul­ti­ple angle video record­ing for up to 35 sec­onds. The cap­tured video is auto­mat­i­cal­ly uploaded to your YouTube account. The record­ing can be ini­ti­at­ed by tap­ping the Record but­ton or can be trig­gered by a motion detec­tor. Even if the cam­era is destroyed after the record­ing, you can still retrieve the video online via a pri­vate YouTube link. It also comes with an iOS app for remote mon­i­tor­ing.

Final Note

Although some home secu­ri­ty sys­tems are quite com­plex and cost­ly, inac­ces­si­bil­i­ty should not be the rea­son why you leave your home unpro­tect­ed. With just your smart­phone and a small device, you can assem­ble an afford­able and ful­ly func­tion­al home secu­ri­ty sys­tem.