12 Safety Tips this Christmas

In keeping with the spirit of the season, we’ve put together 12 days of Christmas home security safety tips to keep your home and family safe during the holidays season:

If you’re like millions of families in Ireland, you decorate a Christmas tree for the holidays. But this classic Christmas decoration is also a potential fire hazard. Each winter, more than 200 house fires started with trees.

You can avoid a Christmas tree fire by taking a few simple precautions:

Whether you’re hanging stockings, decorating the mantle with a fabulous garland, or staying warm on a winter day, Christmas and fireplaces go hand in hand. Avoid potential fires by keeping stockings, decorations, and other flammable items away from the fireplace, and never leave the fireplace unattended.

For more than half of all of Ireland, Christmas shopping includes online shopping. But each year, thousands of people report they have had packages stolen from their homes — usually right from their front porches.

You can help keep these “porch pirates” at bay with a smart home security camera. A doorbell camera notifies you and begins recording when someone comes to your porch, so you can keep an eye on who’s coming and going. The two-way talk feature also lets you communicate with the person at your door, so you can make sure package deliveries are stored somewhere safe and not become a victim of those pesky ‘porch pirates!’

Whether you have family visiting for the holidays, kids coming home from school, or you’re hosting your famous Christmas parties, there’s a good chance you’ll have many people in and out of your house this time of year. With so many people coming and going, it’s easy to forget to lock up — unless you have smart locks for your doors.

With smart locks, you can lock or unlock your doors from anywhere via the GoKonnet app, set up custom actions to lock your doors at specific times, or give a temporary access code to guests so they can come and go without a key.

One of the best ways to show off your Christmas cheer is by decorating your home with lights. Avoid a potential fire hazard (and save energy) with these safety tips:

Set lights to turn off automatically with a timer (or even control them with your voice) with a smart lighting system or the GoKonnect smart home system.

Traveling for the holidays can be stressful if you don’t know what’s going on in your home. Stay connected to your home with smart home features with the GoKonnect app. With this app, you can check your indoor and outdoor camera feeds, lock your doors, control your lighting, and set custom notifications no matter where you are in the world this Christmas.

For burglars and vandals, the outside of your home can be just as tempting as the inside — especially during the holidays with extra cars parked in the driveway and Christmas decorations in the garden.

Keep a watchful eye on your property day and night with smart home doorbells and home security cameras. Features like HD resolution and infrared LED night vision allow you to get a clear picture of activity on your property, day or night.

During the Christmas season, even our pets are not safe. Accidental ingestion of chocolates or poisonous plants like mistletoe and poinsettias increases this time of year, so it’s important to keep a close eye on your furry friends.

Make sure chocolate, seasonal plants, and visitors’ purses are stored away from pets to avoid any accidents. Our ‘wellness camera’ is perfect to allow you to check on your pets or areas you want them to avoid, like the Christmas tree, and intervene if necessary with our voice feature

No matter what holiday you celebrate, there’s no shortage of food — feasts are traditional and (essential!!!) for the holidays.

Nothing puts a damper on the holidays more than a case of food poisoning, so keep these food safety tips in mind when preparing meals:

Known as a “silent killer,” carbon monoxide is an odorless gas that can be extremely deadly. Each year in Ireland people are hospitalized and die from carbon monoxide poisoning

A carbon monoxide detector and 24/7 monitoring are a must to protect against this deadly gas. You can prevent unsafe levels of carbon monoxide by never running a vehicle in a closed garage, turning off portable heaters when you leave a room, and regularly clearing vents of snow build-up from your dryer, furnace, and stove

Candles can add a festive glow or scent to your home, but they can be dangerous, too. In fact, candles start 2 out of 5 home decoration fires during the holidays.

Always keep candles out of reach of children and place them away from anything flammable, especially Christmas greenery. Above all, never leave candles burning unattended. Use a GoKonnect smart home tablet or another voice-activated device to remind you to turn your candles off before you go to bed.

Thousands of home invasions take place each year, most of which occur while the homeowner is away. A home security system equipped with burglary detection features like glass break sensors and motion detectors and around-the-clock professional monitoring can provide priceless peace of mind.