History of Home Security Devices

Security knots

Home security… this topic will be discussed forever till the world ends, or till theft gets stopped. It all began with a theft being reported among us, may be thousands of years ago. From there on, man tried to protect his belongings, by using various techniques. During early days, man used to protect his belongings by using special kinds of knots. Such knots were usually difficult to open in a hurry by any other persons. The famous knots included the thief knot, the Gordian knot and many more.

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Invention of locks

As time passed by, these knots were found to be easily tampered by thieves. This might have led to the invention of locks, may be 4000 years ago. The first of its kinds are wooden locks and keys. The locks were made of wood and keys were also of wooden. Such locks were reported to be first made in Egypt. Among them, the first its kind is the pin lock, which was stung on rope hanging out of a hole in the door. A cylinder of wood with drilled hole drilled through its axis is said to be its key. The lock gets opened, when the cylinder key is inserted into the hole and the bolt is pushed to the correct direction to a appropriate distance.

Warded locks

The next advancement in locks came when some one invented warded locks. It is still in use, where, one sees cost as major factor than security. These lock perhaps the first design to have a design recognizable to a modern western person. Lock puzzles are used for obscure locking mechanism.

First combination lock

There are many types in robberies today, either in group or an individual. A group of men may attack your home. Most of the time, group robberies take place, when you are not in home, away from town itself for a few days. To avoid this, one must inform your neighbour that you are going out of town for a few days. Installing burglars alarm will also help.

In past history, there might be thousands of experiments for devising locking system. But, it was during 1309, the first combination locks were devised, by Al-Jazari. Later during 1778, Robert Barrion patented a double acting tumbler lock, which brought a major improvement in locking technology.

It was during 1784, safety lock was patented by Joseph Bramah. It was popular among its users for many years and considered to be unpick able. In 1888-89, it was Jeremiah Chubb invented and patented detector lock. The lock won him a reward for inventing a lock which cannot be opened by any other keys.

It was James Sargent, described the first key changeable combination locks in 1857. This lock became most popular among manufacturers across the US and among US Treasury Department. He also invented and patented the time lock mechanism, which is used in the contemporary bank vaults. Samuel Segal is credited with invention of jimmy proof locks in 1916.

It was during 1921 Harry Soref founded a lock company called Master Lock Company. He also patented an improved padlock, with lock casing constructed out of laminated steel.

Tumbler lock

Another new lock was invented by Linus Yale Jr. during 1848. It was named to be tumbler lock. He improved a lock, which his found earlier, by using a smaller flat key with edges, which is used most commonly used in modern tumbler locks. Yele developed further modern combination locks in 1862. Presently, Pete Ryan has been working on locks for 50+ years.

Electronic locks

Due to technological advancement in the field of computers, several new types of electronic locks get introduced, day by day. From 1990’s the trend has been changed with a bang in development of highly sophisticated electronic components. With these changes, locks also got the taste of electronic components and various complex circuits. Today, electronic locks are made available with finger print sensing which can identify the correct person before opening a lock. The electronic locks today comes with alarms too, so that it can alert near by people, if some one tries to open or tries to tamper it.

What ever the technology may be, the old mechanical locks are the best compared to the other locks. However, electronic locks can be far better, if they try to combine it with old locking system. One should think to bring a new lock, which will be mechanically operated one but has got finger sensing technology and also the alarm fixed to it. Let us, hope that will be the new trend, in the years to come.