Gadgetory

welcome back to the next big thing I'm Brian Cooley for the longest time a home security system was something you called some company to come install paid them a monthly fee to monitor and hoped you never used it prudent but not very satisfying maybe that's why just about 17% of US homes even have one and who knows how many are actively monitored but our appliance team at CNET's Louisville labs are awash right now in really interesting new DIY home security systems that are connected and go beyond just intrusion and fire detection making them interesting see for the first time get the components in the mail you'll plug in the base tower here and then you'll stick up the rest of the components using the sticky tabs on the back all the devices communicate wirelessly to one another so it's a very nice attractive system you won't have to drill into your walls we'll have to wire anything special into your house you can add additional sensors out of cart if you want to cover additional doors windows or have an extra motion sensor and they also have a carbon monoxide detector leak detectors freeze detectors it's got a motion detector it comes to the panic siren and if you pay 350 instead of $1.99 you get two of these these motion-detecting cameras that are capable of switching into night vision mode so this is a wireless hub designed to be sort of the central nervous system for your smart home devices right now you get philips hue support support for yale smart locks it's the on devices so most music systems the app is available for Android and iOS and it's very easy to use all in all I think it's a fantastic value a great entry-level DIY option and perfect for a smaller home this whole smart home security trend is marked by three particular traits low-cost choice and innovation low-cost a recent price sheet from a major alarm company shows they charge several times as much for each home security module as you pay for the new DIY gear if that helps get people over a hurdle that's keeping them from security tech all the better choice these new systems are the sort of thing you can buy now add to easily later when you have the time and inclination and tailor your system readily as your needs change you can also choose your own monitoring company or choose to monitor yourself or switch back and forth innovation the companies behind this new security tech are startups or at least operate with that mentality they embrace online control interoperability between gear in the home frequent updates to improve the product and services that are rich that probably doesn't sound like your current alarm company worldwide the home security market will grow from about 20 billion dollars in 2011 to almost 35 billion in 2017 creating a lot of room for these new technologies to tell their story and capture share consumers expect intelligent personal connected systems everywhere now without lots of gatekeepers between them and a better experience all of this is disrupting the traditional home monitoring services industry as they're now competing head-on with telco and broadband companies that are new to the market and all of them are competing with services that ride over the top of broadband companies so you've got at least three layers here what's really needed here as well is a redefinition of this term home security to embrace really five areas security climate control appliance control lighting and of course entertainment and if you push back and look at all that from a higher level you start to realize we're redefining home security to mean more peace of mind and then just crisis intervention and prevention Oh