How Alarm.com Prevented a Break-In from Afar

Hack Clinkscales has been an Alarm.com service provider for almost a decade now, so it’s safe to say he knows Alarm.com systems pretty well. However, it wasn’t until recently that he got to experience for himself how the security system could help him catch a trespasser after being alerted to some suspicious activity taking place on his property.

Hack became the owner of Southern Burglar and Fire Alarm Co in Belton, South Carolina, almost 50 years ago, after his father passed along the company to him. It was his grandfather who originally started the company almost a century ago with the goal to help others live a more secure life—and that still holds true today.

Several months ago, Hack was attending a weekly meeting in his office with Alarm.com partners, Jack Dix and Emily Farace on the line. Halfway through the meeting, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was his daughter, Sarah Catherine, with his phone in her hands. A push notification from Alarm.com appeared on the screen and when they clicked it, they saw someone at Hack’s house they didn’t recognize. “Is this one of the landscapers?” Sarah asked. “No, I don’t know who that guy is," replied Hack.

Hack followed the individual’s path through his Alarm.com home video surveillance system. His video doorbell captured the individual walking from the porch to the garage, then his outdoor camera captured him walking to the tractor shed to the greenhouse. When Hack realized it was a trespasser snooping around, he excused himself from the meeting and hopped in his truck immediately.

On his way, his Flex IO on his northern end gate went off, alerting him that the trespasser was leaving on that end of his property. “I called the sheriff's department and they met me en route,” says Hack. “We apprehended the perpetrator, who, when law enforcement arrived, was sitting in my brand-new golf cart. If the Flex IO had not alerted me to which end of my one-mile-long private road this gentleman was exiting, we would've never caught him.”

Hack followed the individual’s path through his Alarm.com home video surveillance system. His video doorbell captured the individual walking from the porch to the garage, then his outdoor camera captured him walking to the tractor shed to the greenhouse. When Hack realized it was a trespasser snooping around, he excused himself from the meeting and hopped in his truck immediately.

On his way, his Flex IO™ on his northern end gate went off, alerting him that the trespasser was leaving on that end of his property. “I called the sheriff's department and they met me en route,” says Hack. “We apprehended the perpetrator, who, when law enforcement arrived, was sitting in my brand-new golf cart. If the Flex IO had not alerted me to which end of my one-mile-long private road this gentleman was exiting, we would've never caught him.”

The value of Alarm.com

After experiencing how a smart home security system could help him catch a trespasser, Hack wants others to know the value Alarm.com can bring not only to their homes, but to their peace of mind.

“The amazing thing about Alarm.com and the cameras is whether you're at home, at work, or even hundreds of miles away, you are present wherever the system is, because you can pull your video up on your phone through the app,” says Hack. “This is so handy when you own multiple pieces of property and when you have multiple people on the app viewing the property.”

Being able to add multiple users to the security system gives Hack’s daughter, Sarah Catherine, peace of mind when she can’t be with her father.

“Alarm.com helps me feel like I'm constantly there for my dad and allows me to keep an eye on him,” says Sarah. “When he's not able to check his phone, we get all the notifications, too, so we're all constantly in touch and constantly able to see what's going on. It's been really good for our whole family.”

Watching the trespasser in real-time and being able to easily track him throughout her father’s property with the Alarm.com products made Sarah Catherine an even bigger fan of the smart home security system than she already was.

“It was definitely the craziest moment that we were able to catch on camera,” says Sarah. “That moment made me more of an Alarm.com fan than I already was. I want everybody to have it because just having the cameras in case of an incident brings peace of mind.”