Do It Yourself: Protecting Your Home

Home security is one of those stubborn low-tech fields that somehow missed the recent few decades of rapid technological advances. Most solutions are cumbersome, expensive, and loaded with gotchas.

We just finished trying out InGrid, a new approach to home security. Like existing systems, InGrid is a two-tier security system. Tier one is in your house. With InGrid, it's a system of wireless controllers and wireless sensors that monitor the house. The sensors are stuck with double adhesive to various doors and windows in your home.

The point of tier one is to report to tier two, which, with the InGrid system, is Guardian Protection Services. With the Guardian service, when the in-house system discovers a problem, it reports it to Guardian, and Guardian's job, for $30 a month, is to solve the problem.

Unlike existing systems, InGrid is decidedly high tech and reasonably easy to install. The sensors are wireless, so you can put them where you need them, without the need to run wires. The controllers are also wireless, so you can add and rearrange them as you please, again without worrying about wires to tie it together. One of the controllers, which InGrid calls the "base," hooks up to your broadband, so your home can constantly update its status.

Your home's status isn't only available to the people at Guardian; you can go online to MyInGrid.com and see which of your doors are open or shut, or have been opened and when. You can activate or deactivate the system from your MyInGrid.com account. In addition to connecting to your broadband, InGrid also hooks up to your phone line  as a backup.

To control your system, InGrid supplies a simple console. The display is monochrome and a bit hard to read, but the menus and buttons are clear and simple. When you leave your house, just press the Away button and enter your security code. You then have one minute to leave. On return, when you enter the house, you have a minute to enter your security code. The console also acts as a simple speakerphone. I guess this would be handy if you forgot your code and Guardian had to call. Usually you'll place your console near the most-used entrance of your house, so it's easy to activate and deactivate the system when you come and go.

And then there's a third controller, called the "handset." The handset has all the functions of the console, but in a cordless phone package. The idea is to place your handset somewhere convenient, typically your bedroom, so you have an alternate location to view status and control the system. The handset also acts as a cordless phone, should you need yet another in your house.

Just to be complete, InGrid also offers a controller called a Grid Extender, which extends the wireless field a bit farther, to cover a larger area. And wireless messages from sensors need to be received by at least two controllers (for reliability), so you should install the Grid Extender even if you have a modest-sized house, just so there's another device listening for sensor chat.

InGrid is designed to be installable by anyone who is handy—that meant my husband, and not me. The 12-page Quick Setup Guide has lots of pictures and large type, and it really does an excellent job of showing you how to install the system. And with InGrid choices are flexible. I'm on the third location for the console and on my second handset location, which is not a big deal because it's all wireless. If you want to move a sensor, just move it. Remember, no wires. The sensors can be identified by their location, so when something is open, InGrid doesn't complain "sensor 13 open," but rather "south porch door is open."

"No wires" is a slight simplification. There's a wire from the base to your router for broadband access, and a wire from one of your controllers to your phone as a backup. Each controller also has a wire to the AC power. The controllers have battery backup, so your protection extends for a while into a blackout.

If you're using VoIP over broadband already, it's good to remember that power outages will take down your broadband, which means both your phone and your InGrid security. To be more reliable in the face of communications problems, I'd expect InGrid to get hooked up to a cellular data service at some point, but that's not present in the current system.

We haven't had the system installed long enough to have to replace the batteries in the sensors. (They are rated for ten years.)  We never simulated a break-in either. ( I couldn't bring myself to inform the police that I was "just testing".

The online component is especially great if you are using this in a vacation house. On MyIngrid.com you can see the status of every sensor in the house, a handy log showing recent "events" such as automatic software updates, sensor changes, remote accesses, and the like. But the neatest feature on MyInGrid.com is that you can switch off the protection if you are expecting a contractor or maid, and then switch it back on when they leave. And because you are managing the system, you don't have to reveal your master code to every handyman in town. The online component also includes email notifications and a possibly handy way for one system to work in conjunction with another, in case you have relatives nearby or a neighbor on vacation.

The cost of the gear is very reasonable $269 or $399 for nice starter kits with no commitments on the monitoring. It's even less if you sign up for one, two, or three years of the monthly Guardian service. And the monthly monitoring fee, $30, is pretty standard.

InGrid is a little company on a big mission, but if you've wanted home security on the cheap, I can vouch for it.