Rant - Maybe a controversial opinion but audible home alarms should be banned

Modern intrusion systems should no longer require an external siren to function. A good system will have a 24/7 monitoring station attached that can send a security van out to check a triggered intrusion alarm. An internal siren might help frighten off intruders, but an external siren is a bit a legacy feature that assumes that surrounding neigbours will check in on the property and call someone if needs be.

In practice, that's not what happens. Many will either ignore the alarm as best they can, or possibly if annoyed enough (and have their number) will call the house owner to shut off their alarm. Unattented external sirens actually work against home security in the sense that if an external siren is blaring for hours without stop, then it's a clear indication that no-one is home and that the house might be empty for the rest of the day. An ideal time to break in while glassbreak sounds will be masked by the siren.

So yea, by all means do away with external sirens. Maybe keep a strobe indicator on the alarm box to make it easier for security vans to find the right house, but otherwise keep the alarms silent.

If I was a burglar I wouldn't waste any of my energy casing properties before I broke in. I would wander through an estate and keep an ear out for alarms. If I heard an alarm sounding for more than a minute or two I would rub my little hands with glee and say something like, "Time to get yer burglin' under way, there be unguarded booty in that thar house!" (I would definitely talk like a pirate if I was a burglar.) I'd saunter in without a care in the world because I would know for certain that nobody is home and nobody is coming to do anything about the alarm.

Nobody near me has an alarm but I used to live on a small estate where one or two houses were frequent offenders. I never saw the point of them. If the owners were away, what exactly did they think was going to happen when the alarm went off? Was I expected to go and sternly demand that the burglars stop burgling? Because that actually happened was that I turned over in my safe, snug little bed where there were no criminals and tried to go back to sleep, instead of venturing off in my pajamas to a house where there might be actual criminals.

Editing to add… one of my neighbours works for a security company that installs alarms. She doesn't have an alarm on her house because she knows how pointless they are.

https://amzn.eu/d/7Nug27l

Not sure how ethical this might be! But it might be a solution if it continues.

The branded sirenbox itself is a form of advertsing, but surprisingly is also a large part of the "security theater" that is designed to deter opportunistic burglars. Branded window stickers, and a branded alarmbox with functioning signal lights will discourage all but the most commited intruders. That alone is nearly half of the security solution before we even start thinking about alarm triggers. A possible intruder will weigh the risk of breaking-in against something like a functioning alarm, and branded equipment on the house will work into that mental calcluation. Can be easier to move on to another house that has no alarm box, or something that appears dated / out of service.

The archaic part of all of this is the external siren that's housed inside that branded alarm box. As I mentioned before, the strobe indicator lights will be useful to direct security vans to the right house, but the unending siren sound is little more than noise pollution at this stage. The monitoring station would have gotten the alarm signal, the siren isn't nessisary and frankly should be banned in residential areas.