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The perimeter and beyond

The intrusion market in South Africa has evolved quickly and has had an impact on how consumers view protection.

Consumers have realised that when an intruder is in your home the chances of a good decision being made is virtually null. Moreover, it has become apparent that if an intruder were to breach the perimeter of the garden an early warning system would be of more help than when the intruder is standing over a bed.

That being said we look at perimeter protection more seriously as this ultimately defines the response time in our environment. Looking more closely at products currently available we have two distinctive products that are being used prolifically.

The first of the two is the hardwired beam. This product typically has a point to point beam that stretches over a particular distance. The distances vary from 20 metres to 100 metres or more. They are affordable and tend to be effective in determining where prowlers are. The downside of this type of protection is that once the beam has been found in the garden one can circumvent it by creeping underneath it or bypassing it and entering a different part of the perimeter. Though the negative aspects are overwhelming, a well planned topology would be very difficult to overcome nonetheless by itself the product could be less effective than a combination of the second mainstream outdoor detector.

The outdoor passive has been an item that has become virtually impossible to circumvent. Though conventional outdoor detectors have specific requirements that will be discussed, this form of protection has been very effective in the way it detects intruders. The requirements that have been obvious on install are:

* The mounting height of the product.

* The removal of bush and shrubbery that might protrude in area of view.

* The size of pets roaming protected area.

* The area of view of detector.

* Bright light affecting the infrared pyroelectric sensor within the detector.

Recently a new breed of outdoor detector has come into the market. The detector is ahead of its predecessors and it features an array of benefits that are unmatched in the outdoor market. The first feature of the new generation outdoor detector is that it is wireless. Ease of installation thus has been significantly improved upon. The new generation detector also boasts a patented technology called anti sway which involves the detector being able to recognise bush and shrubbery and keep your garden intact.

The new generation detector also boasts black mirror technology. What this means is that instead of the conventional Fresnel white lens that is used in detectors the new generation detectors consist of black highly reflective plastic. When rays of sun light shine directly onto a detector the detector can cause a false alarm with infrared light shining directly onto it or you can have a case where bolts of lightning in a rain storm can cause this detector to trigger. Black Mirror Technology has overcome this stumbling block!

In my opinion I believe that both mainstream technologies are important to deploy in a property. It also appears that both the technologies have great added value and both of them have their respective negative impacts. Nonetheless the empirical result is that we want our perimeters to be protected. Combined with CCTV and an electric fence it makes it that much harder for the criminal element to infiltrate and expose our families to crime.

Johan Crause

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