Security Lights:

Maximizing the power of good lighting to make a home more secure is one of the most actionable and affordable steps you can take toward home security. My current arsenal of security lights includes everything from smart lights, motion sensor security lights and (some admittedly shitty) outdoor floodlights.

After boarding up the broken window, the very next step I took was improving my security lights and re-purposing my smart lights for home safety. That’s what I love most about lighting. It’s something you can do today, right now, without any special know how or spending a ton of money.

I find lighting to be so effective because it draws on my fundamental principle of "being a tougher target than the next guy." My house doesn’t need to be impenetrable — it just needs to be better lit, better alarmed, and with less ground-floor access than my neighbors.

To borrow a phrase from my husband, we don’t need to be the fastest antelope in the herd. We just can’t be the slowest.

Security lighting is the quick fix solution for making your home less enticing to potential burglars. After all, wouldn't you rather do your crimes under the cover of darkness? Light up your spot and make your home less of a target.

Here’s a rundown of my favorite creative lighting solutions for home security.

Smart Lights

Did you know your smart lights are not only convenient but can make your home safer, too?

My god, I love me a good smart light. There’s nothing better than setting my lights on a schedule via a phone app and having them turn off at bedtime and wake me up as an alarm. Yes, I use my smart lights as an alarm clock. A soft fade-in to a pre-set of 50% is much more pleasant than any available ringtone, wouldn’t you agree?

But I digress. We’re here to talk smart lights for home safety. The joy of smart lights is they can make you look like you’re home when you’re on vacation, or awake and wandering around your house when you’re actually sleeping. The ultimate decoy.

The beginner’s application for smart lights is to create a dusk to dawn setting for your front porch. Easy peasy.

The next step is to schedule your household lights to turn on and off at random intervals. This gives the appearance that you are awake and walking around your house at all hours of the night.

This is weird when it comes to your neighbors' opinions of you, but great when it comes to preventing crime.

Here’s a sample schedule:

• Set all your lights to turn off at 10 pm because you’re a responsible adult who gets 8 hours of sleep (LOL, don’t worry, there is a manual override)

• Set your living room light to turn on at 10:48 pm and turn off at 11:14 pm

• Set your dining room light to turn on at 11:26 pm and turn off at 12:09 am

• Rinse and repeat all around your home

A set of four smart lights costs me about $30 when they were on sale. I use the Kasa Smart Lights but I’m guessing most brands are the same. Installing them is as simple as… screwing in a lightbulb. Then you download the app and schedule away.

Cheers to weirding out the neighbors and keeping the burglars at bay!

Screw-in outdoor motion sensor lights

The great thing about modern motion sensor lights is that you don’t need to hardwire a new floodlight to get this effect. You can simply screw in a bulb with a sensor to any existing light socket. I find these work especially well inside the garage, but you may want to try them outdoors as well.

What’s funny about these particular type of motion sensor lights is that when my house was broken into, we already had one at the very back of the garage. My hunch is that the sudden flash of light surprised the burglar and prompted him to run. I mean, there must have been some reason why he left without loading up our bikes and tools.

This is pure conjunction on my part, but since lights are a cheap and easy fix… I bought three more motion sensor lights and installed them at intervals throughout my garage, hallway and back stairs.

My intent is to convince any would-be burglar that the homeowner has caught him in the act, flipped on the light switch and is headed down to the garage with a baseball bat. Best to GTFO.

I used these no name LED outdoor motion sensor lights from Amazon. I’m pretty happy with them after 6 months. Though they look just like floodlights, the base screws into a socket just like a regular lightbulb. But in contrast to a lightbulb, the unit has three adjustable heads that throw light across the whole garage.

In addition to making me feel safer, they are very convenient when I’m trying not to trip over my feet while hauling laundry up my back stairwell.

Hardwired outdoor floodlights

If you are fortunate to have hardwire access outdoors that’s not limited to your front porch, I commend you. In that case, I say light that shit up like a prison yard.

Something like this Amico flood light would be a good bet, with 4000LM, adjustable tilt side heads that pan 270 degrees and a motion sensor. Mmm, I can smell the fear.

As you might have gathered, I am not so fortunate as to have access to hard-wired flood light options for my driveway. We’re in the middle of upgrading our electric service, and due to the mortal hell that is dealing with PG&E, it may be awhile before we have any extra amps to spare.

In the meantime, I tried these battery operated spotlights from Mr. Beam, and yes, they are every bit as ineffective as they sound. The batteries die weekly, and even with rechargeables, it’s a huge pain in the ass to haul out the ladder and swap them out. 1/10 would not recommend.

My next attempt will be solar powered security lights, but I’m a bit skeptical they will be bright enough to make a meaningful difference. I want any potential intruder to feel startled and exposed — not like, “hey man, thanks for shining a light on this lock for me.”

My other concern is that my ideal light mounting location is underneath an overhang. I'm not sure how particular the solar powered lights really are, and whether like my houseplants, indirect sunlight is enough.

A few review mention these solar floodlights work with indirect sunlight, but I would have to test them for my specific garage set up.

I’ll update this article when I have something to report back.