Who invented burglar alarm

This is the man who you can thank for keeping you safe at night. An intruder would be caught as soon as they opened a door or window. The electric current in the device would then be closed sending electromagnetic vibrations to a hammer, which in turn would strike a brass bell thus alerting the homeowner to the unwanted visitor.

The key feature of the device was that however hard the intruder tried to switch off the ringing of the brass bell, the first incarnation of the burglar alarm would not stop by simply closing the window or door that the intruder had used to enter the property. This was due to a mounted switch spring which allowed the electrical current to continue to flow and keep the bell ringing until the spring was reset by the homeowner.

Despite the genius work of Pope, the name most commonly associated with the burglar alarm is that of Edwin Holmes. Holmes Electric Protection Company?. While he was working on the first emergency call apparatus, Calahan had another decisive idea: burglaries occurred particularly frequently in cities — if his system were to not only trigger an alarm but also provide a service then an emergency central station was necessary which could react to incoming calls for help.

He began by dividing New York City into districts which were all to be connected up to a central monitoring station. In the event of an incoming emergency call, a messenger boy would be sent out to promptly arrange help for that particular district.

The advantage of the call boxes was that they required very little maintenance. They were run on the mains supply from the local central station. The company was highly successful and held offices in Brooklyn, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Chicago from Calahan's emergency call boxes became standard use for police and fire services, as well as for messenger services. By the end of the s, two thirds of all stock sold was made via messenger boys from ADT.

The twentieth century also saw major developments in alarm technology. Once Calahan's emergency call box design had become more affordable after the second world war, more control points could be used for medical services, police and fire departments, thus improving the security of the population nationwide. In the s, engineers integrated the first motion detectors in their alarm systems. The 80s and 90s were particularly marked by growing democratization, in which alarm systems become a standard feature of building security.

Finally, the first wireless alarm systems came on the market and revolutionized alarm technology as well as on a practical level — until the unavoidable tangle of cables eventually passed away.

Today, even complex premises can be almost completely secured by the interaction of state-of-the-art motion detectors, high-resolution video surveillance technology and electronic detectors. Yet more major technological innovations still keep surprising people.

A few years ago, in , product developers in modern wireless alarm technology at ABUS Security-Center managed to integrate a combination of mechanical and electronic protection in just one single alarm system. Any attempts at intrusion are averted with high mechanical resistance force and detected electronically at the same time.

In a few short years, Edwin Holmes had carved out a niche for his new invention and things were going well! The alarms were effectively doing their job of preventing murders, rapes, and robberies. By , Holmes had successfully installed of his new alarm units, and business was booming. By the year , Holmes had set up the first network of alarms which was monitored by a central station in New York. This became known as "central station monitoring".

Edwin's son, Edwin Thomas, a savy businessman like his dad, was part of the family business too. He realized that he could establish more alarm networks by using pre-existing telephone cables, rather than needing to lay down their own. This lead to the country's first large alarm network, which he established in Boston, and Edwin Sr. By the way, much of this history can also be read about in much more depth in Edwin Thomas Holmes' excellent book called "A Wonderful Fifty Years".

Here we can end the story of who invented the burglar alarm, as burglar alarms took on a life of their own, leading us to where we are now. All manner of smart anti-theft systems can be controlled with the push of a button on our smart phone. What would Edwin Holmes, not to mention Augustus Pope, think of today's world of automated home security? Guide to the Best Home Alarms. Rob Fox is a former hydro worker, who used to teach self defence in Miami for 10 years.

His hobbies include cribbage, golf, locksmithing, and cooking. Furthermore, Free Items here. Disable Ad Blocker to receive them all. Who Invented The Burglar Alarm? About Robert Fox Rob Fox is a former hydro worker, who used to teach self defence in Miami for 10 years. What is a Deadbolt and How Does it Work? That honor goes to the Somerville-based Unitarian pastor named Augustus Russell Pope, who was by many accounts hardworking, beloved, and particularly well-versed in physics and mechanics.

And with that patent in hand, Holmes the businessman did what Pope could not. Although not in Boston. After installing his alarm in his house, Holmes had trouble drumming up the kind of business he envisioned.

But New York? Ahh, there was a den of iniquity if ever there was. As his son, Edwin T.