For several years I had a monitored home security system in my house. Like a lot of people, I decided to get one after someone broke in. I felt more protected knowing that people were monitoring for intruders in my absence who would contact the police or fire department on my behalf if needed. The reality was that I spent a small fortune in monitoring fees and in the single instance that someone did try to break in, the resulting alarm scared the bad guy off and he was long gone by the time the police showed up. I became convinced that there was a better solution out there for me.
Because of my personal experience and after doing a lot of research, I decided a self-monitored security system was the best choice. I wanted something that I could easily manage from my smart phone, had a good quality camera, a loud alarm, and was scalable to include components for more motion sensors, door magnets and managing lights. Piper NV seemed like a perfect solution.
Setting up the Piper NV on my home wireless network took just a few minutes. I downloaded the app, plugged in the unit and followed the prompts. Piper has a 180 degree field of vision. If you want to see what’s going on in your home, you can watch live or recorded video from your smart device. Both the daytime and the night vision image is very clear. You can pan, tilt, zoom and split the screen from the app. You can customize what you want Piper to monitor including loud sounds, motion, and temperature changes and how you want Piper to alert you if something happens. I set mine to sound a loud siren in the house and send an email and an SMS message to our phones for loud noises. If the motion sensor is tripped, in addition to the siren and message the unit will call me. I also set the camera to record if movement is detected.
Piper has a huge library of Z-Wave home automation accessories. I expanded my Piper security system to include door and window sensors, additional motion detectors and a micro smart switch to to remotely control lighting. Adding these to the Piper monitoring was as easy as pairing a bluetooth device.
I’ve had the Piper NV system for about four months and really feel that the upfront costs of purchasing the system are justified by the quality and scalability of the product. I like being able to manage my own security from my phone and I feel more secure knowing that if something occurs, I’m in control of what happens next.
