Many people go on vacation during Christmastime. People take this opportunity to slow down from work and spend more time with their loved ones. Some people do not just have staycations at Christmastime but actually go on vacation elsewhere.

I love going on vacations with my family, too. I try to schedule at least one per quarter.

It’s important to make time for vacations and to disconnect from work and just focus on building family relationships.

But it’s not fun to keep on worrying about the safety and security of your house while you are on vacation. We go on vacation to relax and to forget our worries even for a few days. Surely, we don’t want to be worried about our property while we are out with our family.

Let me share a few tips that can help us keep our homes safe and secure while we enjoy our well-deserved vacations.

1. Make sure that the periphery of your property is well lighted. Burglars or thieves are naturally attracted to dark places or properties because they can literally work in the shadows. So, when you are going on vacation, make sure that the lights in your garage, backyard and fences are working. It is also recommended that you use lights with sensors or those that can be programmed to turn on at specific times even when you are away from home. This way, you don’t need to leave your lights on even during the daytime while you are on vacation. People (burglars) will be suspicious if your outdoor lights are still on when the sun is shining brightly. It will just make them think that there are no people home. My husband did this to our garage light. It has been programmed to turn on and off at the usual times that we used to manually do it when our house was not yet automated. It’s not only convenient but it helps us keep our house safe and secure even when we are away.

2. Turn your lights on inside your house at the usual times that you do when you are home. When you do this, you are simulating your usual dynamics at home. When people outside your home see that the lights at some of the rooms of the house are turned on at different times of the evening or night, they get the impression that someone is home. How do you do this? By using smart lights that can be programmed to turn on and off at specific times of the day or night. You can also control your smart lights through its app or you can also integrate it to the Alexa app. The Alexa app is available on Android phones here in the Philippines. This is used to control Amazon’s echo devices or AI (artificial intelligence) devices. We also use this in our home to remotely control our lights and use voice commands to turn our lights and appliances on or off.

3. Play some music at home at different times of the day. When there is music inside the home, people naturally think that there is someone listening to that music inside the house. You can do this remotely by using the Alexa app also. You can ask Alexa to play music at specified times of the day or night. You can set up a routine in Alexa to play a particular playlist at your specified time. On Christmas day, my husband and I, together with our kids visited my parents and my brother. There was no one left in our house. We used the CCTV monitor in my husband’s iPad to communicate with Alexa and ask Alexa (our AI or artificial intelligence voice assistant) to play some Christmas music in our house while we were in my parents’ place. That is another option if you forgot to ask Alexa to play music at a specific time before leaving the house.

4. Make sure that your doors and windows are locked. Then, add sensors so that when they get opened, there would be an alarm and you would be notified. When you are out of the house, you expect the doors and windows to remain locked and closed. But what if it suddenly gets opened by a thief? Sensors would be a big help in this case. The sensors will make an alarm that can cause the thief to not push through with his plan to break into your property. You will also get a notification via email and your phone that your door or window got opened. When you get this notification, you can easily call the police for help in checking and securing your property.

5. Install CCTV inside and outside your house. There are many kinds of CCTV already nowadays. When thieves know that you have CCTV in your home, they would think twice about robbing your place. But even if they don’t know, you can at least get the identity of the thieves through your CCTV and report them to the police. There are now modern CCTV like IP cameras and those that are wireless. These are relatively easier to install and can be powered by batteries. Some of these have better motion detection and you can view them feed not just on your computer but also through your mobile phone or tablet. You can even talk to the people in the room or home through these cameras. We have these kinds of cameras installed at different rooms in our house. These cameras are helpful even when we are home. We used these before to monitor our maids if they are doing their work as expected or if they are treating our kids right when we are not looking or in the same room. Now that we no longer have maids, we use these cameras to monitor our kids like when we asked to go to sleep already. My husband and I can check on them through our camera to see if they are still moving in their bed or they are still talking. When my husband sees them still moving or talking, he can drop in and talk to them and ask them again to go to sleep or do what he asked them to do. So, in case a thief breaks in your house and you see it in your phone, you can surprise the thief by talking to him or saying something that will scare him and make him go away if you have this kind of CCTV installed in your home.

If you want to find out more about these smart devices like smart lights, smart plugs and sockets, CCTV and sensors, feel free to check out our products in our website or send a message through our Facebook Page Abode Automation PH. You can also send an email to info@abodeautomationph.com. This is my husband’s new business and he is passionate about helping parents keep their homes and children safe and to help business owners keep their property secure.

Do you already have these kinds of security devices installed in your home? Some of our products are currently on sale. So, I encourage you to check them out (through our online shop in our website or our Facebook page)
if you do not have them yet and invest on these devices to keep your family and property safe and to have peace of mind.

Enjoy your holidays!