When it comes to keeping your home safe, many households turn to home security systems. Yet, very few know about the origin of these extremely useful systems.
The first automated home surveillance system was patented in 1966 by Marie Van Brittan Brown, together with her husband. At the time, Brown was working in Queens, New York as a nurse, but it is her discovery in security surveillance that helped her make history. Her patent completely changed how many buildings manage their security today.
As is the inspiration of many other great inventions, Brown was facing unfavourable circumstances that led her to come up with a solution to address them. Working as a nurse, Marie was not tied to the usual 9 to 5, and often found herself home alone when her electronics technician husband was away. At around that time, the crime rate in her community was rising fast, and she felt that she needed to do something to ensure her safety.
It was then that Marie came up with a device that would become the standard home security kit for homes and businesses across the world. Brown’s invention consisted of cameras, remote door locks, two-way communication, and an alarm button that sends a signal directly to the law enforcement: for a device that was invented in the 1960s, it was ahead of its time. This infographic by Think Protection details about the home security system that Marie invented. Since no one else at the time was thinking about such an advanced security surveillance system, the Browns got their patent in 1969, giving rise to the automated surveillance systems that we use today.
