There's one thing we have all felt over the past 18 months, and that's a heightened connection with our living spaces. Whether you own a home or rent, ensuring you feel comfortable on all fronts is major. And, with comfort must come security and safety. There are so many home security devices on the market nowadays that it can seem like a minefield to find the right one that will suit your needs.
No household is the same but something most have in common is the want to keep our home, loved ones and belongings protected, in a stress-free and simple way. Enter Hive HomeShield: the must-have smart home security solution that's able to provide intelligent insight on your home's protection, instantly report incidents to the police and give you all-round visibility on your home's security 24 hours a day – in a way that suits you.
It's convenient, reliable and uncomplicated, so with rave reviews, we thought we'd put the Hive HomeShield to the test with one of Real Homes' expert bloggers and DIYer: Jo Lemos.
Jo lives in a 1930s semi detached house that he spends a lot of time DIY renovating – in a beautiful way. With a strong presence on social media, Jo shares lots of his before and afters on Instagram to the public, which naturally comes with some security considerations.
Not to mention that with the ease of national lockdown restrictions, Jo and his partner are – like many of us – spending more time away from home. Be that to go to an office or on holiday, it was the ideal time to enhance what was their traditional home security setup with something more tailored to their modern home and lifestyle.
With pets at home a lot of the time and, with neighbours that aren't always so receptive to alarms... Jo and his partner faced many of the same home security needs and setbacks as the rest of us. Taking their home security to the next level with Hive HomeShield made total sense.
Jo tested the Hive HomeShield for two weeks and this was his experience:
Supporting a phased return to normality
'For the last 18 months, my partner and I have been working from home during the pandemic. With things opening more and restrictions being lifted we are now on a phased return to the office. Also the ability to see more of our family and friends means we are increasingly spending less time at home.
As we knew we would not be spending as much time at home we have been on the lookout for a new smart security system and HomeShield by Hive is the perfect fit for us.'
'We moved into our 1930s semi detached in November 2019 which has an existing traditional security system. The system was made up of motion sensors in each room with a siren mounted to the front of the house. However, as we have a 4-year old dog called Lola who stays at home while we are out we couldn’t use the system as she would set it off. The existing security alarm was also not connected to any alert system so we wouldn’t know the alarm was going off anyway and alarms tend to be ignored by neighbours.'
'Now that we are going back to the office there were a few things that we were looking for in a new security system:
- Smart security system with an app for real time updates
- Dog-friendly
- Something simple and easy to use that you don’t need to think about'
Pet-friendly on all fronts
'With the HomeShield system by Hive we have managed to find a good solution for what we needed. The big draw for us in particular was the pet-friendly motion sensor which is able to determine if it’s a cat/dog moving around the house – rather than a person. This was all the more important to us with the arrival of our new puppy Olive in July which meant there would be two dogs in the house while we were out.'
A fine-tuned and perfectly designed system
'The starter pack includes sensors for the front and back door, keypad for setting the alarm, siren, outdoor camera and the pet-friendly motion sensor. The camera for me is one of the best parts of the system. It notifies you of motion or noise of whatever is in its field of view.'
'We live on a relatively busy residential street so initially we were getting notifications any time a car or person passed the house. However, I was able to tweak the settings to only detect people and set up a zone that only detected people that came onto our driveway.'
'I had the fright of my life when I woke up after the first night of having the system and had a notification to show someone was on our driveway at 4am. Having watched back the footage I realised it was the milkman that I’d never actually seen before!'
Ease of setup and communication
'You can also communicate with anyone through the two way speaker and with the HomeShield subscription you also get 30 days of video footage backed up.'
'The other feature I love is that you or anyone in your house can set the alarm from your phone. We often leave the house and forget to set the alarm and it's really convenient that you can arm or disarm it from your phone.'
'We can give our dog walker guest access as well as our family and friends, meaning you don’t have to worry about anyone knowing your code.'
Built to suit your needs
'On the app you get notifications if the alarm is going off or if it sees something suspicious so you can react to it there and then. You can also add to the security system at any time with additional cameras and sensors – without having to pay for someone to come and install or service it.'
'So far the system hasn’t missed a beat and the best thing I can say about it is that I don’t have to think about it as it works quietly in the background.'