It is a sad truth that crime is a part of our society, and there is no aspect of life that is completely immune to the possibility of crime. Normally, the more expensive something is, the more sought after it is by criminals who would prefer to simply steal other people’s hard-earned possessions rather than try and work for their own. Cars fit this description very well, and car crime in Australia is a very real problem; throughout 2017, there were 52,858 vehicles stolen in Australia, which works out to about one every ten minutes. So, rather than becoming part of these statistics, why not consider some of the latest tech to help protect your vehicle.
Smartphone car alarms
There is a range of smartphone connectable devices that can be used as a remote car alarm. They will most often take one of two approaches, either they will hide in plain sight, often pretending to be a speaker or something else so as not to let the thief know they are there, or they will announce their presence proudly, aiming to deter thieves. Whichever of these approaches they take, most remote alarms will be monitored life so if they are disconnected or the car moves when it shouldn’t, the alarm will sound.
Security dashcams
A dashcam is a sensible enough measure in cars these days, in fact, many are now starting to come with them built-in as a standard feature. But what many of them lack is the ability to continue to monitor the area around your car once it is parked and switched off. These cameras watch for movement, and if they detect it they activate a stream directly to your smartphone like a remote doorbell allowing you to let the thief know that they’re being watched.
Faraday cage key fob pouches
In case you don’t know, a faraday cage is a room, box or container that completely shields its contents from all radio waves. This means that no radio signals can pass into or out of the cage, completely isolating whatever is inside. This is relevant to cars as there is a fairly readily available technology that can clone your key fobs electronic signal and then open the car as if it was an original fob. Having a faraday cage shielded pouch to store your key fob in means that this would prove impossible. As a side note, this also applies to contactless bank cards and shielded card cases are also available.
Whilst these three gadgets might seem fairly passive in their approach to protecting your vehicle, they provide just as much security as a good, old fashioned steering wheel lock and improve your awareness of the situation befalling your vehicle. Of course, there are far more advanced vehicle security installations for your car available, and these offer a whole range of extra possibilities, but normally have to be built into the vehicle. The more passive measures discussed here are off the shelf options that you could install today, giving you a bit of extra piece of mind whilst you wait for an appointment with the security experts.
