Burglary Protection: Secure Your Home on Vacation

The figures speak a clear language. According to the police crime statistics, police recorded 82,920 (Bundeskriminalamt) cases of residential burglary nationwide in 2025, 5.7 percent (Bundeskriminalamt) more than the year before. The clearance rate was only 14.1 percent (Bundeskriminalamt) - in plain terms: a solved burglary is the exception, not the rule. That makes it all the more important to prevent the burglary in the first place rather than hope for it to be solved later. Prevention works, remedy rarely does.

Insurers also quantify the scale. For 2024, the German Insurance Association counted around 90,000 (GDV) insured residential burglaries and paid out around 350 million euros (GDV) for them. The average damage per case rose to 3,800 euros (GDV) - the highest figure in twenty years. On top of the financial loss comes something no policy can replace: the feeling that strangers were inside your own four walls. It is precisely this loss of security that often weighs on those affected for a long time.

A persistent myth is that burglars only strike at night. In fact, in 2025 37.8 percent (Bundeskriminalamt) of all residential burglaries were so-called daytime burglaries - that is 31,332 (Bundeskriminalamt) cases in broad daylight. During the holiday season, when no one drives to work during the day or returns in the evening, a home lacks its typical signs of life. This is exactly where smart burglary protection comes in: it replaces the missing presence with technology and makes it visible that a home is being protected.

A visible camera works in two ways: it deters many offenders before they even try and provides footage that helps the police if the worst happens. Placement is decisive. Cameras belong where burglars actually get in: at the front door, at rear patio and balcony doors, and at poorly visible side entrances. A video doorbell covers the entrance and shows you who is ringing even while you are away. In addition, our page on security cameras gathers the right use cases for the home.

Technically, three things matter: reliable recording, sensible notifications and a stable connection. Storing footage locally by preference keeps the data in the house instead of forcing it into a cloud. Motion-based push notifications only alert you when something really happens and spare you false alarms from passing cats or swaying branches. For the camera to stay reachable from your holiday, you need a stable wireless network reaching every corner - we describe how to eliminate dead spots in the article whole-home Wi-Fi with mesh and on our Wi-Fi optimization page.

The key under the doormat or in the flower pot is one of the oldest mistakes when travelling - and burglars know it well. A smart door lock solves this elegantly. You lock the door via app or numeric code, and if a trusted person is to water the plants or empty the mailbox during your holiday, you issue a time-limited access code that is only valid on certain days. Our page on the smart door lock explains the options for different doors.

Remote control is handy too: from your holiday destination you can see whether the door is really locked and re-lock it if needed. What remains important is the principle insurers stress: mechanics before electronics. About a third of offenders give up if they cannot get in within three to five minutes (GDV), so every mechanical reinforcement - sturdy locks, mushroom-head bolts on windows, a crossbar - pays directly into your security. The smart lock adds comfort and control to this mechanical base; it does not replace it.

Burglars observe houses before they strike. If a home looks lived in, they often move on. From a police perspective, presence simulation is intended for exactly this: it makes an outside observer believe someone is there - above all through automatic shutter and light control (Polizeiliche Kriminalprävention). On a schedule, lamps in the living room and hallway switch on in the evening and off later, shutters go up in the morning and down at night. How to implement this with smart lighting is something we show you during setup.

For the simulation to stay believable, variation matters: slightly changing switching times look more genuine than a rigid rhythm that repeats to the minute every evening. Equally important is a detail the police explicitly point out: shutters should not stay fully closed all day, because lowered shutters in broad daylight are an unmistakable sign of absence (Polizeiliche Kriminalprävention). A normal daily rhythm, supplemented by moving light in the evening, is better.

This sentence is the core of burglary protection: every second an offender needs longer, or feels observed, increases the likelihood that they give up. Visible cameras, moving light, a solid lock and attentive neighbours work together. That is why it pays to combine technology and mechanics and to briefly inform the neighbours before you leave, so they keep an eye on the house and empty the mailbox.

Security technology and privacy are not a contradiction; they belong together. A camera may only capture your own property, not public space or a neighbour's plot. Where the field of view inevitably reaches the boundary, privacy zones that mask parts of the image help. How to set up a connected home in a data-frugal way overall is something we explore in the article set up a secure, private smart home.

Equally important is securing the accounts the cameras and door lock hang on. A separate, long password per service, two-factor authentication and up-to-date software close the most common entry points. Where local processing is possible, less data leaves the house. On this too, our guide to a secure smart home offers practical pointers that combine well with holiday protection.

The best burglary protection is of little use if it stays half-configured in the box or the app was not set up properly. This is exactly where we come in: during a home visit we install cameras and motion detectors, set up the smart door lock, create the schedules for light and shutters and connect everything reliably to the Wi-Fi. You have to deal with neither app setup nor recording storage. The starting point for the right equipment is bundled in our smart home advice, while the actual implementation is handled by the setup at your home.

Our approach is always the same and thorough: first the inventory - which entrances are there, what concerns exist, how long will you be away? Then we install and configure cameras and door lock, set up the presence simulation and check range and notifications. Finally, we show you everything calmly, so you can safely check the picture from your holiday destination. We answer questions in between personally, without a hold queue - we are happy to give a first assessment via our contact form.

Because we come to you by car in the Hildesheim and Leine valley region, burglary protection can usually be handled in a single appointment before you leave. Fitting a relaxed summer, many customers combine this with other topics - such as how to keep the home cool with smart technology or how to make an easy start with AI in everyday life at home work. That way a security appointment often turns into a thoroughly tidy, well-functioning home.