Security Lighting Tips to Help Keep Your Home Safe and Sound

A dark, dimly lit home attracts attention. By this, we do not mean admiring glances from a passerby, but sleazy peeps from burglars and thieves, noting your home as a potential target to steal and plunder. In a bid to keep homes safe and sound from robbers, the past decade has witnessed the advent of a variety of motion detectors and security cameras. However, a measure you should simply not miss out on is incorporating security lighting in your home, which has been regularly described as one of the most effective, simplest and cost-effective approaches to deter criminal activity in and around your home.

In this article, let’s take a look at the several benefits of security lighting, and the best tips to help you implement it in your residence for you and your family’s utmost safety

Analysing your home’s exterior

While you do want to toughen up your home from the inside to make sure burglars have a hard time sneaking around, outdoor security lighting can make your home look lively (and foreboding) enough that they never consider your home an easy and viable target in the first place. 

If your home is a flat in an apartment building, most of your security lighting options present themselves in the form of interior lights. For others, the key to any successful security lighting plan lies in a prior thorough analysis of your home from the outside. 

Starting from the front of your house, note down any easy access points and dark areas you come across. Make your way around until you’ve surveyed the back and sides too. Remember to assess all your windows, garage doors, nearby trees as well. 

Light them up

Now that you have a clear idea of which areas outside your home need improvement, you can outline a complete exterior security lighting design. Illuminating your driveway well can greatly discourage any perilous individuals from trying to sneak up to your home, as they risk being seen by neighbours or anyone around. Additionally, as most burglars attempt to enter homes from entrances other than the obvious front door, make sure to install lights near secondary entrances like large windows and backdoors. 

With driveways, doors and other entrances garbed in a layer of security, your next move involves eliminating any hiding places outside your home. Dark areas in close vicinity or worse, direct proximity of your home offer burglars a hiding spot to bide their time and devise a way to tiptoe inside. 

While setting up your landscape lighting scheme, opt for LED light bulbs such as Ankur's GLO Frosted LED Lamp. This ensures that you’re not left with a big hole in your pocket if you’re keeping the outside lights switched on for long periods at night, as modern LED lighting consumes significantly lesser electricity than its traditional counterparts. 

Motion Detection – The Right Way to Go?

In the realm of security lighting, it’s hard to go five paces without hearing about the brilliance of lights equipped with motion sensors. Though they’re worthy additions to any home defence design, it would be ill-advised to depend on them alone. 

As the idea behind motion-activated lights is to startle intruders with blasts of intense light once they’ve already stepped foot on your property, this measure should be nothing more than your final throw of the dice. Instead, the main intent of any effective security lighting scheme is to keep out any trespassers and vandals in the first place. 

A look inside. 

With all vulnerable areas outside covered, it’s time to look at interior lighting tips that can help amp up your home security. When leaving the house free of any human presence, a long-held belief suggests that simply keeping the lights on will keep burglars away. Unfortunately, burglars are not fooled as easily anymore. Robberies are rarely spontaneous, and their careful planning often involves canvassing your home at different times of the day. So, a home with the lights always on may be as much of an invitation as a dimly lit or dark one. 

Lights set with timers is a crafty sleight of hand that can lead any burglars canvassing your home to believe that the home is occupied. Lights can be scheduled to switch on at dusk and turn down at nightfall to give the impression of human presence. With the help of timers, you can also make sure that different lights turn off and on at varied times, further bolstering the illusion. For families escaping from the monotony for the weekend, scheduled lights are a great option to keep the home safe. 

An even better alternative is installing smart lights. Many smart variants can be turned on and off remotely with the help of just your mobile phone. With these, you can do away with schedules entirely and confuse anyone keeping an eye on your home. 

Adding to the appeal

Security lighting does not have to be overly harsh or unpleasant. While the main aim is to illuminate well, nothing is standing in the way of the lights being beautiful and attractive. A truly effective security lighting scheme not only lends protection but also works with and enhances the aesthetic of the place. 

Based on your personal lighting preferences, you can pick out the lights most suited to your décor while also reinforcing safety standards. Lighting fixtures such as Ankur's Rectangular Manooi Style Clear Crystal Chandelier Customised are prime examples of luminaires that are capable of gracing your home with both boons. 

With this, your crash course on security lighting is now complete. We hope this article helps you figure out a security lighting scheme that works perfectly for you and your home!