In an article we posted concerning the security risks that the nice weather of summer time brings, it was mentioned that thieves can easily catch on to patterns to determine whether or not you might be home. As a result of this, if you plan to be away for some time, it would be necessary to call on friends and family for help. You may have to schedule them to take your garbage cans in and out, bring in your newspapers, turn your lights on and off and take care of many other unique patterns that can be giveaways. Although this will help to hide the fact that you are not at your home, coordination with friends and family can be quite difficult. The more realistic you want your lighting patterns to be, the more frequent someone will have to come to your house and when they do come to your house, you must give them the keys, alarm code, etc.
 
      As we alluded to in the article, there are products that can solve a majority of these problems. Digital Monitoring Products’ (DMP) Virtual Keypad App (also available for desktop) is one of them. As the name suggests, the application (available for Android or iPhone) allows you to essentially take your keypad with you. One unique benefit of the app includes the ability to set up automatic lighting patterns. This would effectively eliminate the need for someone to monitor your lighting situation if you are away on vacation. Additionally, given that your alarm system is set up properly, you can have the ability to unlock/lock doors and arm/disarm the system. This would allow friends and family to gain access without the need of giving them a key or alarm code. Lastly, if you are concerned about the individuals accessing your home or receive an alert, you have the ability to access up to six cameras from the app, given of course that your premises is equipped with cameras.
 
      These features point to the fact that this is an amazing product that can greatly reduce the burdens and costs of properly monitoring your home security. For more information on some of the ways that the virtual keypad can be used in everyday life, not just while you’re away on vacation, our article titled, How I Use My Security System gives many great examples of capabilities offered by the app in conjunction with the DMP XR150 panel. DMP’s website also has some great screen shots of the app for both Android and iPhone that give an excellent overview of its functionality.