Package Guard: Brilliant or Ridiculous?

If you do a lot of shopping online, you’re familiar with the problem: Package thieves. If you’re really lucky, you’ll be home when your package is delivered and be able to bring it right inside. Or maybe you can have things shipped to an alternate address like your office where they’ll be safe. If you’re really, really lucky, you live in a place where your packages can sit on your porch unmolested until you arrive home to get them. Many of us aren’t lucky.

Package Guard at first blush seems like a lovely answer to the missing package problem. Just place it on your porch, hope your carrier follows delivery instructions and puts your box on top of it, and receive an email or text message to let you know your package has arrived. Sending that message also arms the alarm on Package Guard, which can only be turned off by replying with the word, “Off”. If someone removes the package without turning off the alarm, it will sound. Reports are that it is as loud as a car alarm, so the theory is it will scare off the thief.

Here’s where my innate cynicism comes into play. How many car alarms have you heard, and unless you think it might be your car, your only response is to look around in annoyance and hope whoever is making that horrible racket stops it sooner rather than later? I know I do. It has honestly never occurred to me that a car alarm going off actually indicates attempted grand theft auto; instead, I assume someone accidentally set it off trying to unlock their door. And since this is marketed for residential areas, the alarm won’t necessarily help if none of your neighbours are home.

Supposedly it’s “almost impossible” to steal both the package and the Package Guard, but I bet it could be done. Granted, it can be attached semi-permanently to hard surfaces like your porch, but I wonder. I also wonder how long the alarm sounds once the package is stolen. You’re not there… that’s why you’re using Package Guard in the first place. The alarm turns itself off when the package is replaced, which is great if the thief drops it back on Package Guard instead of stealing it, but what if they don’t? Imagine your neighbours’ complaints if it just continues to sound until you get home!

I’m still not sure about this one, but their Kickstarter reached its funding goal shortly before the deadline, so these things will become a reality later this year.

Source: Gizmag