The Ventilation and Fire Suppression Options may be
accessed at the bottom of this page.

The Video Option described here allows you, from inside the Safe Room, to see much of the area around the Safe Room. It's a convenient way to assess threat level and to ensure that it's really the police that have finally arrived. There are two other important features of our Video Option: the intruders are unaware that you are seeing them and the system performs even if power has been cut off to the house.

Let's cover the components of the Video Option using the house plan presented earlier. As mentioned previously, all of these items will be added after all the house or remodel construction and inspections are completed, when we convert the Walk-in Closet into the Safe Room (this is done to maintain secrecy, since only our small team of highly trusted people will know of the Safe Room).

The various elements of this Option are shown in the image. At the Master Bedroom ceiling a fake smoke detector with a wifi-capable video camera is installed to observe the area around the Safe Room. A dedicated router receives the video via wifi and displays it on a tablet (e.g., iPad). The video camera, router and tablet are powered by an uninterruptable power source (UPS) larger than the one supplied with our "standard" Safe Room, so that the system functions even if intruders turn the house power off.

Finally, a microphone is installed in the Safe Room, with a speaker outside, so you have the option of speaking to those outside the Safe Room ("the police are under way" to intruders, or "show me your badge" when the police arrives).

All of these elements are powered continuously 24/7, to ensure that you have video immediately upon taking refuge in the Safe Room. Unlike some of the other options, it is recommended that proper operation be confirmed regularly by simply glancing at the video tablet, at least once a month and desirably once a week. In practice, the tablet could be mounted on the wall behind an open space between hanging clothes, so a person can conveniently glance at it almost daily as he or she enters the closet to get clothes.

The Ventilation Option is described here and the Fire Suppression Option is described here. You may return to the main ConsultResearch page or to the first page in this Safe Room series.