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flush mounted, designer alarm keypads

February 27, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Sometimes, something different is needed, something that little bit extra

In new homes, or designer styled interiors its the littles touches that make things just that little bit better, and that includes the burglar alarm system.

Most burglar alarm keypads are white and surface mounted, and this may not fit in with the design of your home or office.

Therefore, at Zodiac Securty we are able to offer a range of flush mounted burglar alarm keypads with a variety of finishes to suit your decor as required

designer keypads flush mounted, designer alarm keypads

flush mounted burglar alarm keypads in a variety of different finishes

This way the alarm system keypad can remain in the open (rather that being tucked away in a cupboard) as it will fit in with the interior design and help to keep your property safe and secured.

For more information on how we can adapt our range of burglar alarm systems to suit your needs please feel free to contact us

Filed Under: Burglar Alarms Tagged With: ,

Social media and security

December 15, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Increasingly criminals and thieves are using social media to choose and target their victims.

How so? i hear you ask

With todays technology and internet access so readily available, peoples use of social media (mainly Twitter and Facebook) is increasing day by day

social media security 300x113 Social media and security

how safe is your social media and online presence?

More and more often we are living out our lives on these social media sites, saying what we are doing, where we are going and for how long, its simply putting the information that a criminal needs right on their screen.

So how can you protect yourself? here are five simple steps:

  1. On Facebook make sure your privacy setting are set so only your friends can see your content.
  2. Only connect and add people who are real friends, do not accept random friend requests from people you don’t know.
  3. Do not post that you are leaving town / going on holiday / will be away from home for a long period of time. this is simply giving the criminal a time window of when he can burgle you!!!
  4. Try not to post pictures that inlude your address of any noticable details that could give your address away.
  5. Avoid posting pictures of expensive items / valuables in your home, its like a shopping selection for the

So there are five simple steps on how you can protect your social media presence from being the burglars information source for burglaing your home. Simple, effective, useful.

Filed Under: General, Latest News Tagged With: , ,

GSM door and gate entry systems

August 16, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

There are times when running cables fron the entrance to a driveway to a main house or office is a problem or simply gets missed out.

If the entrance to the driveway has an electric, automated gate or has a barrier you need to have someway of opening this without having to walk to it everytime.

So how can you do this if there are no cables between the gate and the main building? Our prefferred method of acheiving this is by using a gsm entry system.

GSM door entry GSM door and gate entry systems

GSM door entry system

This system removes the need to have cables between the electric gate and the main building, traditionally a cable would have to be run from the speech station to evey phone or handset location.

With a GSM system a sim card is installed in the main speech station unit, this will then connect to any preprogrammed phones required, (for example your mobile) this means in essence you can then open the gate from your mobile phone from anywhere in the world!!

This can also be applied to blocks of flats or offices where the entrance door can remained locked until someone needs to gain access, all someone needs to do is push the relevant button for the flat of office and then the door can be opened from a phone or mobile with the touch of a button!!!

No cabling betwen phones and speech stations, total flexibility and cost effective – what more could you want??

For more information on door entry systems please do not hesitate to contact us.

Filed Under: Door Entry Tagged With: , , ,

i just bought some equipment off the internet

August 16, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Can you fix it for me? Can you install it for me?

The simple answer to those two questions is NO.

Here are the reasons why:

Whilst some equipment bought from the internet may be of an OK standard, most isn’t, its of poor quality that isnt fit for the job, which leads to point 2

When we carry out a site survey, the security systems we design and the equipment used is specific to that site, and each security item is used for a specific purpose, equipment bought online is often not suitable for the job it needs to do. We have many years experience in both the design and installation of security systems, making sure that we get the job done right, first time, every time.

Therefore by agreeing to either fix or install this equipment we are putting our name to it, and using below par equipment is simply something we will not do at Zodiac Security.

If anything buying cheap security equipment off the internet is a bit of a false economy, as well as not usually being up to the job the actual working life of this equipment is a lot less than higher quality systems and people often end up coming back to us to have a properly designed and installed system when they realise how poor some systems can be, wasting that initial money they spent.

So in essence, yes you can buy security equipment offf the interent, some of it may be good, some of it is very very bad, but our simple rule is that unless we supplied and designed the system, we wont touch it.

Filed Under: General, Latest News Tagged With: , , , ,

do you use more than one code?

July 25, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

One of the most important things we stress to all of our customers when they have a burglar alarm system installed  is the importance if using seperate codes for every invididual who will be turning the burglar alarm system both on and off.

why is that? i hear you ask..

The reason is very simple, all burglar alarm systems installed by Zodiac Security have the ability for multiple alarm codes, each code can be given to anyone person and a name attached to that code.

For example code position 2 could be given to Steve Smith.

This means that every time Steve uses his code the system stores and records this fact, therefore you know who is using the system and at what time. If everybody uses the same code how do you know who set the system / unset the system?

Another reason behind seperate codes is that each code can be given a user level, from a master code (all functions allowed) to a simple user code (basic funtions only)

This means that only authorised personnel have additipnal security features such as issuing new codes, deleting codes, viewing the system memory and more.

Very simple, basic practice but essential for optimum security.

Filed Under: Burglar Alarms Tagged With: , ,

Anti smoking alarms

March 16, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

With smoking bans in place for all areas of public use – including pubs, offices and many other work places it is important that you protect yourself so you are not liable for any fines or staff issues.

One way of doing this in by protecting any areas you may feel are liable for people to have a “quick smoke” with a standalone anti-smoking alarm system.

This system means that you do not have to install a true, operational fire alarm system, therefore keeping costs down but only units where you feel may be vulnerable to people smoking. – no interconnected wiring required!!

The detector unit looks like a standard smoke detector and when detecting smoke a message will be played that goes as follows:

‘This is a no smoking area. Please extinguish your cigarette. A member of staff has been contacted’

there is also an iption for a 92 db siren to be activated if required.

Applications suitable for the anti amoke alarm unit include:

  • Schools
  • Hospitals
  • Local Authorities
  • Private Business
  • Food Preparation
  • Offices
  • Pubs 
  • Restaurants
  • Care Homes
  • Mental Health Centres
  • Drug Rehabilitation Centres
  • Psychiatric Hospitals
  • Sports Centres
  • Government Buildings

for more information or purchase price for these anti-smoke alarms please do not hesitate to contact us.

Filed Under: Fire Alarms, General, Latest News, Random Tagged With: , ,

the importance of battery back up with access control

March 15, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Access Control is an electronic security system that controls who has access to your building, and where they have access to.

Now there are very many different types of access control system but essentially they are all dependant on one thing – electricity

The potential problems start when the electricity is removed (i.e a mains failure)

A properly designed and installed access control system will have a power supply unit with an emergency standby battery – so when the electricity is off the standby battery will take over the powering of the system for a period of time (how long will depend on what the battery is having to power) leaving all protected doors protected.

Paxton net 2 in metal housing 150x150 the importance of battery back up with access control

power supply with battery back up

Then, when the power is restored the battery is recharged, ready for any future mains failures.

So what if there is no battery back up?

The answer is that it depends on what type of electronic lock has been used for securing the doors. Again, there are multiple types of lock but they all fall into two catagories

  • Failsafe
  • Failsecure

Failsafe means that should the lock lose power then it will revert to an unlocked position – meaning that the door is no longer protected and a security risk.

Failsecure means that should the lock lose power it will revert to a locked position – meaning that the door is secure but potentially nobody can get out – a fire risk hazard!!

This is why access control systems should only be designed and installed by a professional installation company, rather than trying to do things “on the cheap” as it is simply not worth the risk of having an ineffective security system.

If your access control system does not have a power supply with back up battery then speak with Zodiac Security as most existing systems can be adapted and have the essential power supply and battery added to the system.

Filed Under: Access Control Tagged With: , , , , ,

Funtasia Charity Ball

March 9, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Once again Funtasia are organising their charity spring ball at Westlands Leisure Complex (Yeovil)  in aid of:

  • St Margaret’s Hospice
  • Flying Colours (For Yeovil Womens Hospital)

Tickets are available at £37.50 per person and includes a full 3 course dinner plus entertainment on the night

Please take the time to have a look at the flyer (link below) which provides details of the night and also how you can book tickets.

Funtasia A5 Spring Ball 2011

Filed Under: General, Latest News Tagged With: ,

Use your data cabling network for your CCTV

March 9, 2011 By admin 3 Comments

Traditional analogue cctv systems have always been fairly labour intensive, with every cctv camera separately cabled back to the controlling unit (the digital video recorder or similar) plus power needs to be found at each camera location – another cost and time factor. this can make many installations both costly and prohibitive.

With new, digital cctv systems this is all set to change. IP CCTV systems can now be connected onto your existing cabling and data network infrastructure to reduce the need for installing new cabling back to the control unit, helping to save on labour rates and helping to keep the cost down.

The new IP CCTV cameras simply connect to spare ports on your data network and are connected and programmed remotely via the NVR (network video recorder) – the camera can either be powered locally or if more practical and convenient can be POE.

There are other advantages of the new, digital IP cctv systems over the traditional analogue cctv systems as well:

  1. As the systems are digital rather than alaogue the cctv cameras and display can be fully HD upto 1080p. This provides full, crisp images with the ability to zoom in for clodse inspection and detail.
  2. The IP CCTV systems are easily expandable – if more cameras are required then they can be installed, connected to the network and programmed, no need for more cabling back to the controller.
  3. As the CCTV system essentially becomes part of your IT network, remote viewing and control of the cctv system is easily achieved.

If you are thinking about having a cctv system installed and would like to find out more on how our IP CCTV systems could help you then please feel free to contact us.

Filed Under: CCTV, Latest News Tagged With: , , , , ,

Scaffold Alarms

March 8, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Scaffolding – pretty essential when it comes to building work isn’t it, helps you get up to and work at high levels!

but who else does it help?

Criminals, vandals and other people who are not supposed to be there by allowing them easier access to traditionally harder to reach places that may not necessarily be protected by internal security systems

hama139 150x150 Scaffold Alarms

sometimes scaffolding needs an alarm system

so how can you stop them?

CCTV systems on scaffolding can be a great visual deterrent and help but generally are a reactive measure rather than a preventative measure, only becoming useful after the event has occured (which may be too late)

The answer lies with a dedicated scaffold alarm system and there are two options available

  1. an audible warning system
  2. an audible warning system with gsm signalling

Both scaffold alarm systems work in exactly the same way and are fully wireless (with the expetion of mains power) to make installation simple and easy for each site. In fact once initially programmed and supplied the scaffold alarm can be reinstalled many times over in multiple locations making it excellent value for money.

The one difference between the two systems is that the GSM system will signal any intrusions and alarm activations ovet the GSM mobile network to any pregrogrammed mobile numbers (so no need for a landline) to provide you with immediate notice of the potential break in.

Additional security and movement detectors are easy to add to the system if required (due to being wireles) as the size of scaffold installtions can vary from site to site, twin this with proffesional warning signs and you have the best of both worlds – a visual deterrent and active response

For more information on how we can help to protect your scaffolding please contact us

Filed Under: Burglar Alarms, General, Latest News Tagged With: , , ,
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