Ok some real life experiences of the Yale panels in use and abuse.
Lets look at the scenario where you have put your control panel in your hallway where you come in the door because you have both a power point and a phone socket and you can get to the panel quickly to disarm its countdown.
Ok weakness number one.
If it is a 6400 that plugs into a landline then yes the intruder could pull out the phone socket and the device could not call out.
Lets first establish modus operandi.
I would be absolutely gobsmacked if this became the accepted way of breaking into homes since in my experience 99% of burglars come in the back doors / usually of the patio kind so they cannot be seen about their nefarious activities.
Anyway lets immagine that Burglar Bill does decide to do so - He comes in the front door and he can hear the panel counting down its 20 seconds... So out comes the phone line (Presuming he has nerves of steel and the ticking countdown hasn't made him realise he has set off the alarm and he better scarper.
Now of course he didn't have to even get in the house to disable the phone so in that respect the yale is just as secure as any other land line monitored system.
However lets for the sake of this thread assume that he gets in the home and hearing the countdown pulls out the phone jack. This gives him ten seconds left so what does he do?
He takes the panel off the wall?
Big mistake - microswitch tamper immediately activates the alarm.
Ok so lets see . pull the plug out from the wall socket?
Big mistake number two , the internal battery just keeps the system ticking away nicely.
Right lets try putting in a code . . . . . whoops three wrong numbers and the system locks up for 1 minute.
So lets try the initial plan A smash up the panel.
Well assuming while when attempting to smash it they manage to keep it on its wall bracket so it doesn't instantly activate they will have to be very skillful. I have replaced Yale panels where intruders have attempted to stop the alarm by smashing the panel and in all cases they have failed to damage the panel enough to stop it working. I have replaced a panel attacked with a pair of mole grips and jumped up and down on cracking the LCD screen and leaving trainer prints on the casing. The alarm still went off. The only reason it was replaced was because you could not read the lcd screen anymore.
Once the panel has activated the external siren even if you do decide to hang around and spend more time smashing it up , firstly it will take some time as they are remarkable robust and secondly when you do finally break the panel it still wont stop the external siren from continuing its pre alloted alarm signal length wether that was set to four , ten or even fifteen minutes.
Whatever could be said of attempting to destroy a yale panel could equally be said of opening the pantry / understairs cupboard etc and attempting to destroy the endstation.
As mentioned if you are really that worried you could mount the control panel elsewhere and just have a keypad at your front door.
I have even mounted control panels in bedrooms with a keypad at the front door. No chance then of sleeping through a burglar getting in your back door then.
Alarm has given good advice in this thread but I would always as I do suggest a professional like himself has a go at fitting a yale alarm just to be pleasantly surprised by how they work in the field.
