Car Alarms
Saturday, July 11th, 2009
Once now a very popular accessory for a new car, alarms are now considered one of the less effective methods of protection, which has sprung from their “neighborhood annoyance” factor. Alarms were being triggered for all sorts of reasons their highly sensitive nature meant that if a cat jumped on the car or a lorry passed by, the vibration could set off the alarm, and if this was in the middle of the night then even worse.
Car alarms reached a point where false triggers were happening so frequently that the first thought upon hearing the siren wasn’t that the car was being stolen, but that it was a false alarm. This meant that people have taken less and less notice of the noise, so it is unlikely that anyone else but the owner would care or bother checking the car, rendering the systems generally pointless.
Early alarm systems were very basic and were triggered by switches attached to the doors, only sounding when the door was opened. Later systems added switches for the bonnet and trunk, and also motion and heat sensors for the interior of the car that could sense movement inside.
More advanced recent systems also cut back on the false alarms, and have back up power supplies and sirens, and can be linked to the cars deadlocks. Most are now combined with some form of electronic immobiliser, and some notify the owner if they are triggered by a phone call, text message to a cell phone, or email, and even have optional extras like spy cameras, or devices that fill the car with smoke.
More expensive new cars are generally fitted with alarms as standard nowadays, and if you have an older car we would only recommend an alarm system that is both professionally fitted, and coming in conjunction with an electronic immobiliser, as the sound alone has become to generally ignored to be effective.
Finally a big thank you to the guys at Orangewheels.co.uk who supply new Toyota Auris UK Cars who gave up their time for free to help us put together this information site.