Ultimate Test: home security systems

$249 (£158 approx), canary.is

Canary is one of several home security systems – see also setups from Piper and iSmartAlarm – that offer affordable home monitoring via an accompanying app on your smartphone, with no monthly subscription. Its body houses motion, temperature, humidity and air quality sensors, as well as a mic and wide-angle HD video camera with infrared night vision. Over time, these sensors learn what is ‘normal’ for your household, and will alert you if anything seems awry.

Price TBC, parson.it

Designed to blend unobtrusively into the most stylish surroundings, the Animals range of home security cameras can be installed indoors and out. Made from recyclable materials, the different models (chameleon, owl, cricket, ‘urban bird’ and so on) are all based around the same HD video camera and MicroSD card slot, but advanced features such as face and number plate recognition, panic detection and ‘people counting’ vary from model to model.

£25, responseelectronics.com

Burglars generally want to avoid confrontation. A lighting timer is one way of convincing would-be intruders that your empty property is occupied, but this LED unit that mimics light coming from a television is an alternative. The flickering LEDs realistically simulate scene changes and fades, and it automatically powers on at sunset. FakeTV only consumes about as much electricity as a children’s night light, making it safer, greener and cheaper than just leaving the telly on.

From $119 (£75 approx), bit.ly/ola-lock

We’ve been using keys since the first millennium BC, while the first keycard lock was patented in 1975. Doesn’t your high-tech home deserve a security system that’s a little more up-to-date? Enter Ola, which grants you instant keyless, cardless entry via state-of-the-art fingerprint recognition, which can store and recognise up to 1,700 prints. Bluetooth and an accompanying smartphone app mean you can still grant temporary access to others if you need to.

£500, yale.co.uk

There’s no shortage of ‘smart’ locks that let you open your front door with your phone. But this one comes from the grandaddy of lock design, Yale, and uses the Z-Wave home networking protocol. That means the same app that lets you into the house also gives you remote control of a range of over 1,000 smart appliances (including lighting, window blinds and more) from wherever you happen to be.

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