 We're glad to know you're still there. It's breakfast on PLOS TV Africa and we have a tech expert here with us, a biology or laddie football, to talk to us on securing our homes with technology. Good morning and welcome to the program. Good morning. Okay, well a lot of people when we always see how we how homes are protected by technology from movies and we feel I see and maybe if you think about that kind of a thing in Nigeria you must be stinkingly rich before you can protect your home with technology. Is this a myth or is it true? Yeah, so protecting our homes with technology is becoming more affordable now. So yeah, so it's something that with just a little budget we can do it. So now you know, smartphones are everywhere and you have apps and you have some of these devices for home security that you can just they are like plug and play. Of course they could be overwhelming at some point because you need to bring a lot of devices together or you can start small. So basically you know you could have we are all used to CCTV just circuit television cameras but now we have you know smartphones that you can just stick to anywhere around your homes and you can monitor from your phone and you also have alarms and sensors so like door cameras and they are also amazing ones that you can even have smart lock. So just imagine that you have smart locks for your door and when you have your guests maybe family or relatives from your phone you can create access for them so you don't need to share your spare key with anyone so you just create and once they are leaving you can you know disable their access. So those things are becoming affordable and available. When you talk affordable how affordable is this affordable? Before coming to this program I check popular e-commerce sites you know the one that is popular in the country and also the one I bought I could see just around $90 you know so they are that that price range of $100, $120 compared to before where you need a thousand dollars to be able to and you need experts to be able to come and fix it by at your home now you don't need that it's just most of their long-term Wi-Fi then use your phone to arm or disarm them. Yeah I was going to ask you if you need this kind of home security whether you need to change the architecture or you need to change the way your house is the wiring and everything for you to be able to accommodate this. So that's why we call them smart security for homes right? Smartly says that the last conversation we discussed once we put smart to something it means that number one is connected to the internet you can send data to the cloud so and once it's connected to the internet it means that you can use Wi-Fi. So now as long as you have internet services, Wi-Fi devices you don't need to you know you'll wire your homes and the good thing is that some of them are just you can always remove them and stick them into another position so they have those dissection material that you can just unplug them and the plug fix them into another location so you don't have to just permanently fix a camera in a position so if you just have one and you want to monitor your outside perimeter for example you just remove it from your room and put it there maybe you have a party or something and when you're done you remove it and you place it into another location so they are available in Nigeria or I have to order it from abroad. So I know a shop in Nigeria that sell end-to-end completes those smart security and so they are available in Nigeria. The one I have personally patronized and visited is in Yaba. Okay that works that works because when you have a shop in Yaba, I have a shop on the mainland there are two different things so Yaba. Okay it means these things are here with us but walk us through the advantages of having this home security through technology. Are they replacing the Yaba keys or are you still need this? So one survey that I you know Macross reported that 92% of Xbox Glass said that when you have a smart security system it will deter them so they didn't say that when you have physical security that will deter them so physical security is good but sometimes they could be tricked they could clear and go find something to eat and wear things at home and there's also the human fatigue and the fact that the familiarity people that was to break into your home may come in the form of being friend to them and that trust level they get that trust and they use that to break in but with technology you can't you can't be friends to technology once you include the alarm just you know sound and also you get insight and there's another nice thing about smart security so you have data so you could understand the pattern and your smart security could report what is happening in the building your human security sometimes is just looking around your outside premises and you may not want to give that person access to your rooms and go but just imagine that somehow somebody was able to break in that barrier of human security and is in the building so your smart security will be able to pick that up even if it is your human security that you use the privilege of the fact that it has access to quickly maybe get into your room get into some restricted area your house you'll be able to get notified on your on your app and you can't even lock that person in okay there are two concerns now if it is affordable you can buy it or you can install it maintaining it is another thing how how sure are we maintaining it in the sense that in two senses that okay if it breaks down the someone who can who can look into it without you having to necessarily go and buy another one and two maintaining it in the sense that you might need data that you didn't even think you can ever use in your life is that what happens that if you have this home security run by technology you'll constantly have data maybe 20 gigabyte at a time 100 gigabyte at a time that that means it will cost a lot of money to maintain okay so let's start from the data part data is becoming affordable you think so yes there are even data plans that you when you pay for your airtime you get data package bundles free and all that and some of these devices they are also not data hungry remember these manufacturers this product they are in the market to gain advantage and they constantly have better versions that you use just release amount of data so of course it's part of the survey that you need to do you need to go for a provider or a product that can work in an environment that is not data hungry that is beautiful african market and also that can work in an environment where power is not efficient so some are battery powered some can run using your grid electricity so but you need to then you also need to also look for the ones that could withstand our climate yeah so you you you just can bring those things and import them you need to be sure that so i once uh had a camera that was two cameras actually me and my colleague one was bought in india another one was bought in the us and when we traveled to uk the camera that was bought in us worked very well but the one that was bought from india they they work so that they i just got to understand that some of these uh uh these product and devices they were actually made for a particular environment so it's very always very important when you are buying some of those things to be sure that they can really work in an environment and that's why sometimes it may be better to patronize local vendors because you can always go back and replace it so they have the ability to maintain it as it were yeah everything goes wrong okay but another concern is how safe is this security system how secure is it because some people feel it can also be prone to hacking and if that happens then you're as good as open to everybody yeah so data security yeah sure you can there's vulnerability when you have smart system computers for people can use it as endpoints to tag to carry out malicious intent so that's very possible and that's why it's always better number one to buy from unauthorized dealer or source so that you're buying a product that has passed some certification and test and if your device has a software that needs to be updated it's always good to ensure that you have the latest updates of your software because those devices software power those devices and periodically they get refreshed and so you don't want to say that oh this update is i will do it later so once you are prompted to update or to upgrade just leave everything and update it so always go for the latest version of the software and also the normal hygiene that we practice in data security because those things are passwords so password management ensure that it's well handled if you need to change your password regularly you do that and so if you do that you're limiting the surface of the attack and once there's a bridge or you notice a bridge just quickly call in the professional to quickly do an audit of your environment and they might be able to isolate the device the one that has been compromised and you know replace it okay a final one and very quickly now the last time we talked we talked about the lack of infrastructure limiting how much technology can flourish in Nigeria this security systems you're talking about they don't need that kind of infrastructure that you were talking or do they still need it are we still having this limitation no this infrastructure we have now can't power this smart system so yeah we are fine with the infrastructure we are okay so the present government talks about technology what would be your greatest advice for them now as a last thing to deploy more technology in government data so now there's issue of for pms price in like transport so there should be a way for example government work out to be able to work remotely but you need technology so a lot of things we can power technology even with the infrastructure that we have so deploy more technology to increase the productivity of people okay we've been talking with a lot of people of biology a lot of people is the tech expert and he's talking with us on the on securing our homes with technology and it's been a pleasure having you thank you so much for coming on the show thank you okay before we wrap it up here's the quote for the day the value of an idea lies in the using of it the value of an idea lies in the using of it those are the words of Thomas Edison and I do hope that whatever idea you have you will try to put it to use so that it becomes something if it be a dream country my name is Nyam Ghul I've got you let's do it again tomorrow bye for now