Design and Implementation of a Low-Cost Automatic Home Alarm System

Security alarm systems come in various forms: manual or automatic; individual or organizational; cabled or wireless; etc. They also provide different levels of efficiency and at varying costs of implementation. Some systems are combined for improving their overall effectiveness. Home alarm systems focus on the monitoring of the premises' access points for alerting dwellers (owners) of the intruders. Literature shows that these are normally beyond the reach of the larger market segment. The aim of this study was to avail a low-cost home alarm system. Using an experimental approach, the researchers used components recovered from old and obsolete computers in implementing a circuit designed for that purpose. The produced prototype product was realized on a breadboard and passed all practical tests. It was recommended that the designed system be put into a commercial production for use on premises such as small businesses (shops), banks and storerooms, plus remote entrepreneurial sites (away from the electricity grid) such as green houses, fish ponds and gardens.