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Vehicle: Car: Alarm
DDDD Auto Alarm   (+14, -1)  [vote for, against]
Dial, Display, Decide, and Deploy

This auto alarm, instead of sounding the horn or beginning a series of klaxons and squeals, calls your cellphone when triggered.

When you recognize the number and take the call, the car cameras switch rapidly through multiple viewing angles, displaying either the crime or nothing going on.

You decide if it's a false alarm, and disarm and reset the system through a phone option, or assess the threat to your vehicle and choose your alarm response from a series of options, dependent on which ones you purchased when you had the system installed.

You may only turn on the popcorn. Perhaps just the audio pain inducers. You may prefer to put on some pants and sneak up. Options vary based upon local laws.
-- normzone, Aug 06 2007

The popcorn PSA_3a_20Popcorn_20Security_20Alarm
[normzone, Aug 06 2007]

The impetus... Honest_20Car_20Alarm
...but the concept has been on my mind for some time. I do not enjoy getting dressed and going out in the pre-dawn hours to assess parking lot activity. [normzone, Aug 06 2007]

The WiFi approach Wardriver_20Car_20Security
[normzone, Oct 24 2008]

Can we remotely Taser? Please can we?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 06 2007


I don't see why not. You may get sued, however. I'd take the risk ;-)
-- normzone, Aug 06 2007


You could give the thief the choice. He would have to choose from a list of punishment options, one of which would be to call the police.
-- marklar, Aug 06 2007


Not sure why but my first impression was that this alarm somehow released a very large pair of breasts to attract attention to the theft. Maybe its because my wife is away for the week.
-- jhomrighaus, Aug 06 2007


I like it, but I'd prefer to have it call a security company, who are likely to be awake in the wee small hours when I am not.
-- DrCurry, Aug 06 2007


Good point, [DrCurry], but given the response times of such outfits I guess the wisdom of that would be dependent on how far you are from your vehicle (multi-story building, etc).

Depending on which vehicle alarm goes off, I'm 100 - 200 feet, give or take two flights of stairs. It's the getting dressed needlessly part that annoys me.

But I feel naked ventures with weapon and flashlight to the parking lot should be avoided except for special occasions.
-- normzone, Aug 06 2007


It's a great idea. Since every car in the parking lot these days has an alarm, no one pays any attention to one going off, thereby rendering the alarm itself useless. But with this system, I can see what's going on, and if you tie the video feed to some remote storage, I'd be able to give the police a good description and possible location of the bad guy.
-- Noexit, Aug 06 2007


"When will you find these guys? I mean, do you have any promising leads?"

"Leads, yeah. I'll just check with the boys down at the Crime Lab. They've assigned four more detectives to the case, got us working in shifts."

--The Big Lebowski
-- Texticle, Aug 06 2007


I had hoped this device might employ Morgana the Kissing Bandit.
-- bungston, Aug 06 2007


I must be getting old. Or maybe just more concerned about offending people.

I did a google image search for Morgana, but the interesting shots I found I was reluctant to link to.
-- normzone, Aug 06 2007


I only had protecting my own wheels in mind when I came up with the idea, but it would be pleasant not to be woken by some random cheap piece of electronics every few hours.
-- normzone, Aug 07 2007



random, halfbakery