Tips to protect your home while on holiday. Add the tips in this blog to your vacation checklist to make sure you can put your mind at ease during your holiday! Especially when there has been a burglary in the neighborhood it can be hard to do so. One minute you’re enjoying the breath-taking view of the Rockies in front of your RV, next minute you’re wondering whether you locked the back gate; if you have closed the curtains or shouldn’t have; if the neighbour who is taking care of the mail takes the opportunity to snoop around… Thanks to your smart home automation though, you don’t have to worry about a thing. In this blog we share tips to protect your home while on holiday. Have a great trip!
How to make it look like you’re at home when you’re not
Fact: Most burglaries happen when people are not at home. And burglars are not fooled by lights that switch on every night at 10 pm. But what to do instead? Do you have to ask your neighbour to turn on your lights on different times every other evening? Thankfully no. Your smart home system can do that for you. Even better: it can really make it look you’re at home when you’re not. How? For starters keep track of the following things in the weeks before you go on holiday:
- When your television is on
- When and where lights are on in the evening
- Till when the computer is on in your home office
- When your teen’s music is blasting through the stereos in his or her bedroom
Tips to protect your home while on holiday
The data you collected can be used to create a special holiday scene, with automatic features like:
- Radio turned on in the kitchen at 6 pm each day, like you normally have when you’re cooking at that time
- Telly turned on just before the evening news. And switched off after your favorite late-night show
- When dusk falls curtains close, and lights turn on in the living room
- Just before midnight lights go out one by one, room by room. Starting in the kitchen, 5 minutes later in the living room to end with the light at your nightstand
- Except the lights in the room of your teenager of course (who never hits the sack before 2 AM)
- In the morning your telly turns on for the first news program or for an hour of Cartoon Network
- And curtains open at 7 am (except at your teenager’s room of course)
Just like normal.
Have a dog? Make that good boy smart! Record its usual barks when someone approaches the gate or rings your doorbell and integrate this in your smart home system. When your motion sensor is triggered or someone is at the door, your smart home system can automatically play your dog’s barking. Good boy!
Monitoring house while on vacation
Monitoring house while on vacation is an extra bonus of your smart home system. Via your smart home app, you can always keep an eye out. See on your phone your bathroom window is left open? You can simply lock it with your app with the click of a button. When you have camera’s, you can have a peek 24/7. Whenever and wherever you are.
Smart lock
Do you have a smart lock? Great! This way you can easily give temporary access to someone for the time you are on vacation. The code will automatically expire on the day you return, whether your digital key is a smart phone app, pin code, remote control, or RFID/NFC tag. This way you can make sure your mother-in-law doesn’t drop in all the time after your holiday ;).
A temporary access code also comes in handy when your alarm went off and you want to give your neighbor or security temporary access to the premises to check whether everything is ok.
Expect a delivery when you ’re not home
Expect a delivery during your holiday? Combined with a smart doorbell you can also give the delivery guy temporary access, so he can place your package in your hallway. It can even keep track of who was at your front gate during your absence.
Vacation checklist
Add the above tips to your vacation checklist and you’re ready to go on a carefree holiday. Are you coming home to a chilly rainy climate? Or the opposite: to temperatures higher than on the tropical island you just return from? Your smart home system will make sure your house is as warm or cold as you want. With your app you can simply turn up the heating or turn on the aircon an hour or so before you arrive.
Would love to have a carefree holiday, but don’t have the time or want to install a holiday-scene yourself? Wondering if you did it right or whether you have the right smart home kit to do so? Comfortica will take care of it.
