My husband and I are currently building a house. One of our soon-to-be neighbors told us that they saw some random people snooping around the new house at 2:00 a.m. What are the odds that someone at a construction site at 2:00 a.m. has any good intentions? Enter: need for an immediate burglar alarm system. The house is wired for a professional home security system, but we can't activate it yet until more construction is complete. I looked up battery-operated alarm systems and decided to try the GE system kit because of the mostly positive reviews. Overall, I think the system kit will fit most our needs. It's not the fanciest, but it's loud enough to wake up next door neighbors during the night and call attention to our house. I set the door alarm off while testing it out, and my ears were ringing for almost 30 min. As discussed in other reviews, the alarms might not be enough to protect against the more determined burglars, but I think it will ward off most. Plus, when combined with motion-activated floodlights and other defense measures, it becomes just another way to make burglars reconsider their plan. Setting the door alarm code is simple, and installation is easy after reading the instructions. I like the door alarm, but I wish it was not so bulky. The window alarms are not as loud as the door alarm, but they are still pretty loud. After installing the window alarms, I realized that my positioning of them made the "alarm, chime, off" label visible to an outsider looking in. I am probably going to run a black sharpie across the label so it won't look as obvious that it's an alarm, and hopefully the burglar won't go right to it. I have not come across any problems with false alarms yet. Hopefully that won't happen because the alarms are not on a timer and will continue to blare unless deactivated. Also, I live 30 mins away and will not know about any alarms going off unless a neighbor or police call me since the alarms are not tied to a phone system. The alarms are not controlled by a central unit, which makes it a little incovenient since I have to turn off all door/window alarms individually before the construction crew arrives. A little inconvenience, however, is still way better than having stuff stolen or the house vandalized. If you go to Youtube and do a search for "GE Personal Security JascoProducts," there should be a professional video and you can see a demonstration of the window alarm. Also, buying this kit on Amazon is a good value. I decided to buy more of these kits, and I saw either the exact same or almost the same GE kit (it had a door alarm and three window alarms) at Lowe's going for $36/each! UPDATE, November 29, 2011: It's been a few months now, and I've since installed a professional home security system. Overall, I am really happy with the GE alarms. Nobody tried to break in (fortunately), so we didn't have any real tests (no false alarms either!). A few things I noticed: First, one of our door alarms would require a few trys before recognizing the disarm code. Second, as previously mentioned in other reviews, it might be hard to install the door alarm if you have non-flat decorative door trim. The only reason I was able to use the door alarms is because I used the blue painters tape to stick the little door alarm magnet at an angle on the door trim, which made the doors pretty unsightly. You should be ok if you can stick a popsicle stick flat against your door trim at the site of the door magnet; otherwise, you may have get creative or consider not getting this product. I removed all the GE alarms after installing the professional security system, but I plan on keeping some for future use and giving others to family and friends.
