Safety & Security

Security is the category where people most often buy the wrong thing — a camera that pings forty times a day, or a detector that cannot wake anyone on another floor. The technology is rarely the problem; the configuration is.

These pieces cover the difference between an alert and a response, why two sensors agreeing beats one sensor guessing, and how to build a system that behaves sensibly when the internet drops or the power goes out.

Articles in this category

1. Smoke and CO alarms: get the basics right, then make them smart

   Interlinking matters more than anything you can buy. Here is correct placement, the optical-versus-ionisation question, why CO needs its own device, and what smart genuinely adds.

   6 min read · 1,339 words · Reviewed October 2026

2. Fire safety beyond alarms: the part that decides the outcome

   Alarms tell you a fire has started. What determines whether it matters happens before and after that moment.

   6 min read · 1,382 words · Reviewed October 2026

3. Home security that is not theatre: what the evidence says deters burglars

   Most burglary is opportunistic, most entry is through a door, and a lot involves no force at all. That shapes what is worth buying — and what mostly is not.

   6 min read · 1,381 words · Reviewed October 2026

4. Alarm systems: self-monitored, monitored, or professionally installed

   Three arrangements, each marketed as if the others do not exist. The right one depends on what you want to happen when it goes off.

   7 min read · 1,472 words · Reviewed June 2026

5. Cameras and privacy: where they belong, and where they really do not

   Name the question the camera answers and placement mostly follows. Then there are the placements that are never a judgement call.

   6 min read · 1,308 words · Reviewed July 2026

6. Door and window sensors: the dull device that does the most

   Cheap, years of battery life, almost no false readings — and half their best uses have nothing to do with security.

   6 min read · 1,402 words · Reviewed July 2026

7. Securing the smart home itself: the dull measures that work

   The device most likely to let a stranger in is not your lock. It is an unpatched camera, a reused password or a forwarded port.

   6 min read · 1,423 words · Reviewed October 2026

8. When the internet drops: local-first safety and security

   Ask every safety device one question before buying it. Then run the unplug test, because the answers are usually more surprising than people expect.

   6 min read · 1,306 words · Reviewed October 2026

9. Leaving the house empty: a holiday checklist beyond lights on a timer

   Theft is only one of the things that goes wrong in an empty house, and it is not the most common or the most expensive. Here is the full pass, in order.

   6 min read · 1,435 words · Reviewed November 2026