Source: DIGITAL HOME MAGAZINE
Publication date: July 1, 2007

By Larry Stevens

Home builders generally serve up security two ways: as preset packages in production homes, or as custom systems through a security contractor who explains the options to the home buyer. But the home builder that's the primary contact for the client gets served two ways: from understanding new trends in home security and conveying them to the client. Here are five things you should know about home security.

It's all about false alarms. Home buyers may take comfort in the fact that many advances in security systems don't come from improved intrusion detection, which is now pretty much perfected, but from reducing false alarms. While a false positive is far less dangerous than a false negative, it can cost the homeowner a few pounds, to say nothing of a bit of embarrassment. “Many local police departments are starting to charge citizens for false alarms,” says Mark Visbal, director of research and technology at the Security Industry Association (SIA). In many localities, the first false alarm is free, but each succeeding one costs the homeowner more and more money.

To solve that problem, the SIA helped develop a control-panel standard called CP-01. The standard mandates, among other things, a minimum 30-second delay on entry, and when cross-zoning is enabled, that two detection devices be activated before an alarm is sent.

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