What Triggers False Alarm Systems in Homes?

Noth­ing will make your heart beat faster than get­ting an alert that your home secu­ri­ty sys­tem has been trig­gered. Thoughts will like­ly race your mind about who could be attempt­ing a break-in and whether catch­ing this intrud­er in time will be pos­si­ble.

When there is a valid threat com­pro­mis­ing the secu­ri­ty of your home, know­ing about it as soon as pos­si­ble is inte­gral so that you can take the appro­pri­ate mea­sures. How­ev­er, the prob­lem is that a secu­ri­ty alert only some­times means there is, in fact, a valid threat present.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, false alarms are rel­a­tive­ly com­mon, espe­cial­ly if your secu­ri­ty sys­tem is old­er, often lead­ing to need­less feel­ings of pan­ic and con­cern. 

A false alarm is trig­gered by acci­dent, alert­ing you to some­thing hap­pen­ing at your home that you did not need to know about. Reg­u­lar, every­day occur­rences often trig­ger false alarms, but when they occur too fre­quent­ly, they may decrease the over­all reli­a­bil­i­ty of your sys­tem.

Main Triggers of False Alarms With Home Security Systems

The type, age, and sen­si­tiv­i­ty lev­el of your home secu­ri­ty alarm sys­tem are all fac­tors that could impact its effec­tive­ness and how often false alarms are trig­gered. While there could be var­i­ous poten­tial trig­gers of false alarms, the first step to pre­vent­ing them is iden­ti­fy­ing them so that you can make adjust­ments as nec­es­sary.

The fol­low­ing are some of the pri­ma­ry false alarm trig­gers that are com­mon for most home secu­ri­ty sys­tems:

• Pets

If you have installed a secu­ri­ty sys­tem in your home to watch your cat or dog while you are away, receiv­ing alerts trig­gered by your pet’s move­ments may be what you want.

How­ev­er, if this was dif­fer­ent from your intent for such a sys­tem and you have a pet that moves around the house a lot, this can get annoy­ing. Motion detec­tion cam­eras are often trig­gered by the move­ments of pets them­selves or by the move­ment detect­ed when a pet knocks some­thing over. 

One way to reduce the num­ber of false alarms trig­gered by your fur­ry friends is by cre­at­ing a detec­tion zone on your cam­eras. This will allow you to avoid noti­fi­ca­tion trig­gers for cer­tain areas of the screen.

If you adjust your detec­tion zone so your sys­tem is not trig­gered by move­ment on the floor, you can reduce the false alarms caused by pets walk­ing around your home.

• Open windows

Anoth­er com­mon source of false alarms is the breeze caused by open win­dows in your home. This wind can set off motion sen­sors and alarms, as it can dis­rupt the con­nec­tion between the sen­sors, espe­cial­ly if it is strong.

In addi­tion, when the breeze from the win­dow moves oth­er things, such as cur­tains, flow­ers, or light­weight items, a false alarm will like­ly be trig­gered. Of course, the best way to com­bat such false alarms is to keep your win­dows closed when your sys­tem is armed.

How­ev­er, it is also pos­si­ble to reduce the amount of false alarms from move­ments caused by wind by reduc­ing your device’s motion sen­si­tiv­i­ty, as low­er set­tings will only trig­ger warn­ings from more sub­stan­tial move­ments that are detect­ed.

• Insects

Bugs can sig­nif­i­cant­ly cause home secu­ri­ty false alarms, which is yet anoth­er rea­son they are con­sid­ered pesky pests. Your false alarm fre­quen­cy will like­ly rise, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the spring and sum­mer, when it is more com­mon for flies to get into the house.

Although most flies, ants, and bee­tles are too small to trig­ger a false alarm from their move­ments as they fly through the air or crawl along sur­faces in your home, if one crawls direct­ly over one of your system’s sen­sors, it can trig­ger a false alarm. 

You can reduce these trig­gers by tak­ing mea­sures to pre­vent such insects from enter­ing your home. For instance, put some mag­net­ic fly mesh or roller fly screen on your doors dur­ing sum­mer.

• Low battery

Anoth­er rea­son behind false alarms is a low bat­tery. A decreased bat­tery lev­el can impact your device’s over­all per­for­mance and cause weak con­nec­tion to pow­er sources. If your device is not per­form­ing opti­mal­ly for this rea­son, it may not accu­rate­ly detect motion, send­ing you false alarms more fre­quent­ly and fail­ing to detect actu­al threats.

If your device has a fea­ture that alerts you when the bat­tery is run­ning low, pay care­ful atten­tion. Be sure to replace the bat­ter­ies before you have been alert­ed.

Sup­pose you do not get alerts when your bat­tery lev­el is low. In that case, set reminders to check the bat­tery lev­el peri­od­i­cal­ly to ensure you can replace it when nec­es­sary.

• Sudden shifts in temperature

Cer­tain motion sen­sor secu­ri­ty sys­tems can some­times be sen­si­tive to quick tem­per­a­ture changes, so you may receive an alert when the tem­per­a­ture sud­den­ly ris­es or falls.

To pre­vent false alarms, installing your device in an area with no rapid tem­per­a­ture fluc­tu­a­tions is best. For instance, keep your sen­sors away from radi­a­tors, bath­rooms, win­dows, and areas that receive a lot of direct sun­light.

How Protection Plus Can Help Minimize Home Security System False Alarms

Sup­pose you have tak­en mea­sures to min­i­mize the alerts caused by the above­men­tioned fac­tors and con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence false alarms. In that case, your cur­rent sys­tem has become too old and needs replac­ing.

Pro­tec­tion Plus can help you find top-notch secu­ri­ty sys­tems that will boost your home’s safe­ty if you are in the mar­ket for new alarm sys­tems in the GTA.

Our state-of-the-art secu­ri­ty solu­tions made by indus­try-lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers are sure to be much more reli­able regard­ing motion detec­tion. With few­er false alarms, you can min­i­mize unnec­es­sary annoy­ances and estab­lish sol­id trust in your sys­tem.

If you do not have a phone line, this is not a prob­lem. Pro­tec­tion Plus uti­lizes GSM cel­lu­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion to over­see your home secu­ri­ty set­up, and our user-friend­ly app will make it much eas­i­er to man­age your sys­tem in real time from wher­ev­er you are. 

Our Visu­al Alarm Ver­i­fi­ca­tion fea­ture is also ben­e­fi­cial, as it pairs alarm sig­nals with video clips of what trig­gered the alarm, so you can quick­ly iden­ti­fy when a false alarm is, in fact, a false alarm. With one of our sys­tems, you can have peace of mind know­ing that you, your fam­i­ly, and your home will be safe­guard­ed 24/7.

For more infor­ma­tion about our alarm sys­tems in the GTA or to learn more about how one of our alarm sys­tems can boost your home’s secu­ri­ty, call Pro­tec­tion Plus Secu­ri­ty Solu­tions at 1–844-365‑7587 or con­tact us here.