Cream house exterior with a security camera above the front entrance
Where We Cover

Home Security Systems Antrim

SSAIB certificated intruder alarms and CCTV, plus video door entry, for homes in Antrim, installed and maintained by one local Northern Ireland team.

Advanced Overwatch designs, installs, monitors and maintains home intruder alarms, CCTV and video door entry for households in Antrim town and the villages around it, including Randalstown, Templepatrick, Crumlin, Toomebridge, Parkgate and Dunadry. We are an SSAIB certificated company, reference NIRE127. We plan each system from the way a break-in actually happens: where someone gets in, what they go for, and what the police will ask you afterwards. The survey is free and the written figure after it is the price. Call 028 7087 8077.

Thousands of premises secured since 2017. SSAIB certificated Company, NIRE127. ISO 9001, 14001, 27001 and 45001 certified.

Get my free survey: call 028 7087 8077. Free, no obligation. We survey, you decide.

What usually brings an Antrim household to us

  • You have been broken into. The back door forced, a window levered, car keys gone from the hall. The police have been and gone, and you want the house to feel like yours again.
  • It happened close by. A neighbour’s house, a car taken from a driveway on your estate, a post on the local community page. You have started checking the locks twice.
  • You have been asked to. An insurer wants a graded alarm at renewal, or a landlord or lender has written a requirement into an agreement.

However you arrive, the next step is the same: somebody walks the house with you, and you get a written figure for a system designed around it.

Most People Look At Home Security The Week After Something Happens

For most households, home security is something you mean to get round to. Then something happens, to you or to someone a few doors away, and it moves to the top of the list overnight.

That week is a bad time to be sold to and a good time to be advised. You are tired, you may be out of pocket, and there are practical jobs to do before anybody talks to you about cameras. So this page follows the order a household actually goes through, starting with the first evening. If nothing has happened to you, read it anyway: the same walk, done in advance, is how a system gets designed properly.

Tonight: Call 999, And Touch As Little As Possible

The PSNI’s own advice is direct. If you have been burgled, call the police immediately on 999, and try to touch as little as possible so that you do not disturb forensic evidence.

In practice that means leaving the forced door or window as you found it, not tidying the room they went through, and keeping everyone out of it until the police have been. Make a list of what is missing while it is fresh: jewellery, laptops, bank cards, passports, and above all any keys.

If you have a doorbell camera or any other camera, do not delete, trim or re-save anything. Note the time you think it happened and leave the recording where it is. The police can tell you what they need and how they want it.

And look after yourselves. Victim Support NI is an independent charity that offers free and confidential help to people affected by crime, whether or not the crime has been reported. A break-in can be unsettling out of all proportion to what was taken, and that is normal.

Tomorrow: Locks, Keys, The Insurer And The Way In

The next day is about making the house secure again, not about a new system.

  • Locks. The PSNI advises changing your locks if you think other people might have copies. If keys were taken, assume they do.
  • The point of entry. A forced door or window needs to be properly repaired, not just closed. It is the one place in the house that has already been shown to fail.
  • Your insurer. If you are making a claim on your contents insurance, keep the reference the police gave you to hand, along with your list of what is missing.
  • Crime prevention advice. The PSNI has local Crime Prevention Officers, and suggests contacting them for further advice on your home.

Once those jobs are done, you are in a position to think clearly about what, if anything, should change.

Why Prevention Matters More Than Recovery In Antrim And Newtownabbey

It is worth being honest about what usually happens after a burglary here, because it explains why the design of a system matters.

PSNI figures for Antrim and Newtownabbey, the policing district Antrim sits in, show 158 recorded burglaries in the twelve months to July 2026, down slightly from 165 the year before. Of those, 23 ended in a sanction outcome, meaning a charge or summons, a caution, a community resolution, a penalty notice or an offence taken into consideration. That is 14.6%, up from 8.5% the year before.

The improvement is real, and it is also a reminder that for most households the practical recovery is the insurance claim and the new locks, not a court case. That puts the weight on two things a home system can actually do: make the house an unattractive choice in the first place, and when something does happen, record it clearly enough to give the police something to work with.

For scale, in Antrim town itself, police street-level data shows 32 burglaries in the same twelve months and 30 in the twelve months before, across more than 2,200 recorded offences of all kinds. Burglary here is uncommon and steady. When it happens to you, that is no comfort at all, which is exactly why the system should be designed around your house rather than a package.

Get My Free Survey

Call 028 7087 8077 and we will arrange a free survey of your Antrim home.

Free, no obligation. We survey, you decide. Answered by an engineer, not a call centre.

Thousands of premises secured since 2017. SSAIB certificated Company, NIRE127.

The Survey Starts Where They Got In

If you have been broken into, the most useful information for designing a system is the one you already have: how it happened.

So a survey after an incident starts at the point of entry and works outward. Which door or window, and why that one. Could it be seen from the road or a neighbour’s house. Was the house empty, or were you asleep upstairs. Which rooms were entered and in what order. What would have been seen, heard or recorded at each step if a system had been in place.

The PSNI notes that a good many burglaries are opportunistic, using doors and windows that are open or easy. A system designed from the actual route closes that route and the others like it, rather than scattering sensors evenly around the house.

If nothing has happened to you, we walk the same way in reverse: we look at your house the way an opportunist would, from the road, from the back, and from next door, and design from what we find.

An Alarm That Changes How The Next Attempt Ends

The PSNI advises making sure your burglar alarm is installed properly and works. That sounds obvious, but plenty of home alarms end up never being set, because they go off at the wrong times or cannot be set with people in the house.

A home intruder alarm is graded and applied under PD 6662:2017 and the BS EN 50131 series. The grade comes from the survey: what is in the house, how exposed it is, and what your insurer asks for. After a break-in, the detail that matters most is that the alarm can be set at night, covering the downstairs and the route they used, while the bedrooms stay free. A system you arm every night is worth far more than a better one you do not.

Then there is who finds out. A bells-only alarm relies on somebody nearby hearing it and acting. A self-monitored alarm sends alerts to your phone. A monitored alarm goes to a manned centre that follows an agreed plan whether or not you answer, and where police response is wanted, the alarm is confirmed under BS 8243:2021 and registered with PSNI under the Unique Reference Number scheme, which operates under the NPCC Police Response to Security Systems Policy 2015. We will tell you honestly which fits your house. There is more on alarms alone on our burglar alarm installation in Antrim page, and in our intruder alarm advice articles.

Cameras That Answer The Questions The Police Asked You

Anyone who has reported a burglary knows the questions. What time. Which way did they come. Was there a vehicle. Did anyone see a face.

Home CCTV designed to the BS EN 62676 series is specified to answer those questions for your property. That usually means a camera at the approach people actually use, positioned low enough to see a face rather than the top of a head; a camera on the side or rear access, which a camera on the front of the house cannot see; a correct clock, so footage can be matched to other evidence; and enough recording time that nothing is overwritten before you notice something is wrong.

There is a legal side too. Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, a camera that only records your own property falls under the household exemption. Once it also records a neighbour’s garden, a shared path or the street, that exemption no longer applies and you have responsibilities for that footage. That is managed at installation with careful angles, privacy masking and sensible retention. Our guide to CCTV regulations in Northern Ireland sets out the detail. If cameras are all you need, see our CCTV installation in Antrim page.

Keys, Cars And The Hall Table

One line in the PSNI’s home security advice surprises people: with modern car security, the easiest way for a thief to steal a car is often to get into the house and take the keys.

That changes where protection matters. The hall table, the hook by the back door and the kitchen worktop are where keys usually live, and they are usually on the ground floor, close to the doors. The PSNI’s advice is to keep keys where they will not easily be found. A good system backs that up: the downstairs is covered when you go to bed, the doors that lead to the keys are the first thing detected, and a camera has the driveway and the car in frame.

Door Entry: Seeing Who Is There Before The Door Opens

After a break-in, a lot of people find they no longer like opening the door without knowing who is behind it. A video door entry system or video doorbell fixes that. You see and speak to the caller from your phone or a screen inside, whether you are upstairs, in the garden or at work.

It is also one of the most useful things for a family with an older parent living alone in Antrim or one of the villages. Linked to the family’s phones, it means someone can see who has called at the door and when, even from miles away. Where it can sit in the same app as the alarm and cameras, we set it up that way, so there is one system to check rather than three.

If It Happened Next Door, Or Has Not Happened At All

Not everyone who calls us has been burgled. Often it is the house next door, or a car taken from a driveway on the same estate, and the question is simply whether your own house would have held up.

The answer comes from the same survey. We walk the house with you, look at it the way an opportunist would, and tell you plainly what we would change and what we would leave alone. Sometimes the honest answer is better locks and a light over the back door rather than a new system, and we will say so.

What Home Security Costs In Antrim, And What We Put In Writing

We do not quote a price on a web page. Two semis on the same Antrim street can need different systems once you see the side access, the back garden and the cable routes.

What we commit to is the process. The survey is free. You then get a written figure covering equipment, installation, commissioning and handover, with the reasoning behind each part. That figure is what you pay. Anything you add later is a new line you agree first.

The things that genuinely change the figure are the number of doors and accessible windows, whether cabling can be run easily or a wireless design suits the house better, the alarm grade, whether you want monitoring, how many cameras and how much recording you need, and whether you want video door entry. A terrace with an alarm and a doorbell camera and a detached house with a garage and a long side path are different jobs, and we will explain the difference rather than hide it inside a package.

Get My Free Survey

Call 028 7087 8077 to book a free survey of your Antrim home.

Free, no obligation. We survey, you decide. Answered by an engineer, not a call centre.

Thousands of premises secured since 2017. SSAIB certificated Company, NIRE127. ISO 9001, 14001, 27001 and 45001 certified.

What Happens After You Contact Us

  1. Free survey. An engineer walks the house with you, starting at the way in if there has been a break-in, and at the most exposed door or window if there has not.
  2. Fixed quote. You receive a written figure and the design behind it. No pressure and no deadline.
  3. Installation day. We arrive when agreed, fit and commission the system, and leave the house tidy. Most homes are finished in a day.
  4. Aftercare. A proper handover so everyone in the house can use it, then servicing and support from the same company that fitted it.

Areas We Cover Around Antrim

One team covers Antrim and the surrounding district, so a survey here is part of our normal week. That includes the town from Castle Gardens and the Round Tower at Steeple out to the estates on either side of the Six Mile Water, the homes along the Lough Neagh shore, and the villages of Randalstown, Templepatrick, Crumlin, Toomebridge, Parkgate, Dunadry, Muckamore and Aldergrove.

Also in Antrim: burglar alarm installation, CCTV installation and business security systems. See every town we cover on our where we cover page.

Antrim Home Security FAQs

Call the police on 999. That is the PSNI’s own advice for anyone who has been burgled. Then touch as little as possible, so forensic evidence is not disturbed, and keep people out of the rooms that were entered until the police have been. Write down what is missing while it is fresh, especially keys. If you have a camera or video doorbell, do not delete or trim any recording. Once the police have finished, get the point of entry properly repaired and change the locks if keys were taken. Victim Support NI offers free, confidential help whether or not you reported it.

As soon as the house is secure and you feel ready to think about it, and not before. The first priorities are the police report, the repair to the door or window they used, and new locks if keys went missing. After that, a survey is worth doing while the details are fresh, because how they got in is the most useful information for designing the system. We will not rush you into a decision in a bad week. The survey is free, the quote is fixed, and there is no deadline on it.

It can, if it is clear and kept properly. The most useful footage shows a face or a vehicle, has the correct time on it, and has not been cut, filtered or re-saved. Tell the police you have it and ask how they want it. For future footage, the camera design matters: one positioned at the approach and low enough to see faces is far more useful than one high on the wall. Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, cameras that record beyond your own property carry responsibilities, which we set up correctly at installation.

It can help. The PSNI points out that with modern car security, the easiest way for a thief to steal a car is often to get into the house and take the keys. So the protection that matters is on the ground floor where keys are kept. An alarm that can be set at night covering the downstairs, detection on the doors leading to where keys live, and a camera with the drive and the car in frame all work together. Keeping keys out of sight, as the PSNI advises, still matters most.

No. Advanced Overwatch has one office, in Coleraine, and one team covers Antrim and the surrounding district from there. We would rather say that plainly than list an Antrim address that is really a phone number. One number reaches us: 028 7087 8077.

Advanced Overwatch is an SSAIB certificated company, reference NIRE127. SSAIB is a certification body for the electronic security and telecare sectors, and our certification covers CCTV, access control and intruder alarms. It means our work in those areas is audited by an independent body against the relevant standards, rather than self-declared, which is what insurers and the PSNI URN scheme look for. Advanced Overwatch is certified to ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001 and ISO 45001.

Talk To Us About Your Antrim Home

Whether you have just been broken into, it happened on your street, or an insurer has asked for a graded alarm, the first step is the same: an engineer walks the house with you and you get a written figure. No pressure, and no decision needed on the day.

Get my free survey: call 028 7087 8077 or use our contact page.

Free, no obligation. We survey, you decide. Answered by an engineer, not a call centre.

Thousands of premises secured since 2017. SSAIB certificated Company, NIRE127. ISO 9001, 14001, 27001 and 45001 certified.

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