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Man Watches Apartment Burgled On His Phone

Lifestyle
8 years ago
2 minutes

A man in New York watched two burglars break into his apartment on his phone with a new tech-app designed to keep your apartment secure.

The man, who has an apartment in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, was out of his apartment, at work, and received a notification on his phone. 

To his surprise, it wasn’t a text or a phone call, but an alert from the Canary app asking him to take action on the burglars in his home. 

The user has two options; one, set off an alarm to scare the burglars away, or two, silently alert authorities that a burglary is taking place.

On the screen was a text alert accompanied with an image of someone in his home.

Thankfully, for our enjoyment, and the owners’ panic, Canary also sends a direct live-feed of the video footage to your mobile device (see below).

Thankfully the burglars only got away with only one $80 bracelet. 

“I looked up and saw someone on the fire escape and I shouted ‘Hey! What are you doing?’ ” said Seamus McDaid, 42, who works at a comedy club downstairs, told the New York Post.

“They got scared once I shouted, and they left after that.”

“Without having the ability to see what happened, I would have just come home to a broken-in apartment,” he said. I would have gone nuts,” he said.

He believes the video also helps the officers who responded to the report of a burglary.

“Being able to show them something right away was really helpful,” said Wheeler, who added that officers told him that they had seen one of the burglars before in other thefts..

Danny Wheeler, 30, the man whose apartment was broken into, passed the footage on to police - upon review, one of the burglars was known to police. 

Canary costs around $199USD to set up along with on-going fees for maintenance and general service - if something more valuable was stolen, the Canary footage could’ve been instrumental in police investigations. 

The apartment was easily broken into due to a weak window, with a weak locking mechanism.

To keep your apartment safe, make sure that you follow our guide to keeping your apartment secure, here.