Owning your own home

We are doing it as we live in the middle of nowhere, so when we are away from home, if someone did break in they would have as long as they like to clear stuff out.

I used to have to spend nights away occasionally for work, so it gave my wife piece of mind that she could hit a panic button and someone would come calling.

When we moved to E17 and had our own front door we felt somewhat paranoid after living 3 stories up for so long.
We went a bit nuts, have Nest inc alarm (imported) and Yale for the big yellow box (and smart alarm).
Ouyr Nest is our every day alarm which runs through HomeKit and auto alarms and the Yale is our "we are away for a couple days" deadbolt like alarm.
Oh neighbours were broken into last year so feel the overkill is maybe valid.

There's definite levels of smart alarm. The one I got (Yale) was about £200, so not much different to a non-smart one, with no subscription.

Main selling point was it's all wireless. Also nice to be able to get a notification that you've left a door/window open when you go out and also the ability to remotely set and reset it.

We didn't bother with one in a flat but in a house, with a couple of floors, it seems a bit more useful.

For me it’s about having some control of the situation. I had two cameras when we had an attempted break in, which was only thwarted by the camera and me setting off the alarm manually. I now have 8, which is overkill, admittedly. Cameras don’t seem to be a deterrent in themselves: at least, our burglar looked right at the one that was filming his exploits. If he had managed to get in he would have probably looked for cash and ipads for 5 mins then hopped it, but It would have been upsetting to know he’d got in.

smart home security setups

Nowadays even if you can still have an alarm linked to the police, there is zero chance they'll come out. So a smart one allows you to check and handle it.

I think it depends where you live.

My folks have always one after a couple of burglaries back when I was younger so I thought they were pretty normal. But the area is a million miles now from where it was - needle exchange is long gone, rough pub is beyond gastro, etc. So not sure if it's still as necessary.

I might be naive, but generally you don't seem to have as many smackheads around. Most of the crime I hear about personally is mobile snatch and runs, usually on a scooter. I can't remember the last time I heard about an old school mugging, whereas it used to be pretty regular. Likewise car break-ins were a weekly occurance and I literally can't remember hearing about one for decades. In terms of burglaries the ones I do hear about now typically involve someone with off street parking and a nice car, or home invasions in high end more suburban areas. So yeah where you live(d) it's probably less use than it would have been in the 90s.