Re: Idea for Cheap Alarm System

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EdwardATeller wrote:
> I'd like to have a simple alarm.  It could be as basic as a motion
> detector that sets off a loud siren.  I think that would scare off the
> majority of intruders.  We come in through the garage, so I would
> just  throw the circuit breaker to turn it off.  If anyone knows a
> product like this, I'd love to hear about it.
>
> Then I started thinking about something a little more elaborate.  What
> if you had a cell phone attached to the motion detector that could be
> set to dial a number if it were set off?  For example, it could dial
> 911 and play a recorded message saying the house address and there was
> a burglary in process.  Or it could dial my cell phone, and then I
> could decide if I wanted to dial 911.  A Virgin Mobile cell phone
> works out under $6 a month, much cheaper than a monitoring contract.

There are already auto-dialers available, and you could use one of those
converters to use a regular phone on a cell line.

There are much cheaper options than Virgin Mobile as well.

That said, monitoring contracts don't have to cost $20-30/month. See
"http://www.alarmrelay.com/"; There may be others that are even cheaper.