Lamp Timers For Extra Home Security

26 July, 2010

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I was going to put two lamps in my house on timers so that they'd turn on and off at certain times of the night and early morning. I have a large home and there's one section I don't go into very often, primarily because I've consolidated my living conditions to the other side of the house. My goal was to simulate the presence of someone else in my house, which is a very good way to deter wannabe burglars and generally increase your home security. Here's how I did it.

First, I put together a plan that I felt would simulate the habits of an older person—like a parent—and a younger person—perhaps a younger child. Decided to use two lamps in adjoining rooms. The first thing to simulate was what might actually transpire each night before bedtime. So I set both lamps to come on mid-evening, with one shutting off about an hour before the other. I decided this would look like a child going to bed, and sometime later the parent retiring for the night.

The next time the lamps come on is around 1:00am. I have set the lamp that shut off first to come one, figuring a young child might get up at night to use the restroom or even go into his parent's room. One minute later I have the other lamp turning on. They are only on for a couple of minutes each, and essentially shut off at the same time.

The third time they come on is in the morning. I have the lamp in the "parent's" room come on around 6:00am, and the one in the "child's" room about an hour later. This is a pretty good approximation of a morning ritual between a parent and a child. I have both lamps shutting off as daybreak sun turns into morning.

This was actually very easy to do. I had never used timers before, but I quickly discovered there are several different types, including very inexpensive manual timers on up to moderately priced digital timers that control 7 different on-off periods. I chose a couple of digital timers right in the middle that would control three separate on-off periods.

Digital timers are simple to use, come with very intuitive instructions, and in about ten minutes I had finished setting up the on-off periods for the first lamp. The 2nd lamp took me only a couple of minutes as I didn't have anything new to learn.

I feel like my house is much safer than it was a couple of weeks ago. I still arm my ADT monitored security system each night, but I decided there was nothing wrong with simulating more activity in my house than there actually is. Living alone doesn't have to mean becoming an easy target for burglars. Try this in your house, and I think you'll quickly discover the value of this home security tip.