Photo by Michael248

Statistics say that a vehicle is stolen every 25 seconds, somewhere in the USA. Alarming? You bet. Consumers across the world are losing billions of dollars every single year, because of automobile thefts, and the number keeps on increasing. The first officially recorded car theft case happened in 1896. People get their vehicles / cars insured. So, the money doesn’t go anywhere. But, the biggest loss is time and the love for the car. You have to spend countless hours in insurance clearance offices and so many inspections and verifications, and then the time spent to buy a new car. You have that emotion towards your dream car that you owned. Your baby is gone and that’s very irritating. Want to protect your car from being stolen? Welcome a car alarm to the rescue.

Let’s see How Car Alarms Work!

Here’s the basic concept:

A siren is usually connected to a few sensors, and as soon as a person would open a door, a signal would be transmitted to the siren from the sensor, and the siren starts wailing. But, thieves won’t just give up. Hence, the need for safer devices comes into the picture. Modern technology makes this a possibility. The new-age car alarms are more sophisticated in terms of how they function and their safety measures. There are components or devices like radio receivers, motion detectors, pressure sensors, auxiliary batteries, etc. that enable the alarm to function normally, even if the main battery of the car fails.

Believed to be the main part or the brain of the alarm system, a computer control unit, is designed and used to monitor everything that happens in regards with the alarm. It even triggers the alarm, when required. In today’s age, a lot of these alarm systems mainly vary in terms of the type of sensors used and the various combinations or ways in which the component devices and the computer control unit are connected.

Some of the most common car sensors are:

Pressure Sensor:

This is the type of sensor system that checks and monitors the changes experienced in air pressure created when a window is broken into or while opening the car’s door forcibly to trigger the alarm. Some Pressure Sensors use the in-built speakers of the car, while many others have their own speakers.

Door Sensor:

The Door Sensor alarm is probably the simplest of all car alarms. In this alarm, when the front trunk or doors of the car open, the system gets activated and the alarms start ringing. Many Door Sensor alarms don’t need a dedicated switching mechanism to function. They usually require just one addition / element to the wired circuit in order to have the alarm activated.

Window Sensor:

While the doors of a car are not meddled with, a car can still be stolen by just breaking into the windows. This is a trick used by thieves many a time. To prevent such a theft, Window Sensor alarms are used. The basic Window Sensor alarm can detect glass or window breakage, when a microphone and the system’s computer control unit are connected.

Shock Sensor:

Modern day’s sophisticated sensor alarm systems make use of shock sensors to ensure that thieves return empty handed. Shock Sensor alarms run on the concept that it is used to send signals to the brain of the system and the strength for the motion in case the sensors find someone trying to push or move the car. The brain of the system immediately starts honking through the horn in the car or the sound system of the car plays in order to ward off the person / thief.

Motion and Tilt Sensor:

This is another type of sensor alarm system which is used to nab thieves who tow away the car between places. Perimeter Scanners are installed in these sensor systems, which are used in order to watch the car’s surroundings, like it were a Smart-Eye.

The Alarm Sounds:

Unless the car alarm system gets prompted and a signal to prevent the theft is transmitted, a car alarm does no good for what it was created, regardless of how high-tech and state of the art the system it is. The least a car alarm system can be expected to do is to turn on the lights and turn them off (blink / flash), when some trying to intrude is detected.

Besides, the horns should have the ability to be honked as well. Some alarms are smart and sophisticated enough that they have special mechanisms which turn off the car engine’s ignition process and even block petrol / gas supply. Some car alarms are designed to focus attention on to the thief in order to scare him. These modern car alarm systems sound the in-built siren and their sounds are ear-piercing.