Talkin Smart Home Security With The Pro: George Langabeer

In this episode of the Technical Difficulties Smart Home Podcast, we welcome George Langabeer, a leading voice in smart home security. George shares his journey from loss prevention manager to smart home technology expert, discussing the importance of security measures like cameras, locks, and lighting. He emphasizes the need for proactive security solutions and the role of reputable brands like Alibi in providing reliable systems. The conversation also touches on the challenges of smart home technology, the integrity of product reviews, and the realities of shoplifting and loss prevention.

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YouTube @georgelangabeer

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Transcript

George (00:00)
people on my channel come at me with some of the craziest things ever. I mean, people coming out of helicopters and dropping down on rope ladders and belly crawling across their yard. If those things are happening to you, you got, you got bigger problems. The camera system's not going to help you. The alarm system's not going to help you. You need help.

Pete (00:11)
Wow

Brandon Doyle (00:13)
Thank

Pete (00:19)
Welcome to season four, episode four of the Technical Difficulties Smart Home Podcast. Today we're welcoming George Langabier as our guest. He is one of the leading voices in smart home security. So he has a lot to share about that and what you can do with your smart home to make it safer. He's gonna share some very fun stories about the stupid criminals he caught when he used to work in video surveillance.

and he helps teach me how to steal a kayak. So it's a lot of fun, it's worth a listen. But before we get to that, let's take a minute to tell you about our sponsor, Zeus. As I mentioned, today's guest talks a lot about smart home security and Zeus Z-Wave products can help you take your smart home security to the next level. Zeus offers a wide range of sensors to keep your home secure and safe, including indoor and outdoor motion sensors, open-closed sensors, a tilt shock sensor that can detect broken glass, plus a DC signal sensor for your smoke alarms.

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Again, that's the smartest house dot com. Now let's get on with the show.

Pete (01:38)
all right welcome to the show everybody I'm Pete your host as always with me is Brandon. Brandon you excited to be here? You better be.

Brandon Doyle (01:45)
I'm always

excited to be here, but it does look like our friend Vince is missing in action, but we have a great guest today, George Langvier. So excited to have you on the show. How are you doing?

George (01:57)
I'm excited to be here. I'm doing very well. Thank you.

Pete (02:00)
Yeah, thanks for joining us. George has his own YouTube channel. It's self-titled, right? Just George, George Langabier channel, if you want to check that out. A lot of focus on security, talking cameras, locks, that sort of thing, but just general smart home stuff as well. So we're excited to have you on the show with us, George.

Brandon Doyle (02:00)
Awesome.

George (02:17)
to be here.

Pete (02:18)
Yeah, so.

Brandon Doyle (02:18)
Now the first

question we always want to ask our guests is what was your smart home first smart home device?

George (02:24)
My first smart home device was the original Nest Learning Thermostat. that 2011 maybe? And that's what got me hooked.

Brandon Doyle (02:34)
Are you still a Google guy?

George (02:35)
No, I did not. I did use the last generation for a while and did a video on my channel review of that, but I'm back to Ecobee at the moment and I don't think I have any other Google products in here right now.

Brandon Doyle (02:48)
I'm a team ecobee as well. I believe Pete is too so

Pete (02:52)
Yep, I

got an Ecobee, so I think we'll be testing out a few more things for the channel here from Ecobee soon. So tell us a little bit about why the security back, why you doing cameras and locks? Why is that your focus? You have a background in security, is that right?

George (03:07)
I was a loss prevention manager at a regional retailer. So I used to sit in a room and use surveillance equipment to catch shoplifters and meth heads and all sorts of bad guys and bad girls doing crazy things. And so I caught 1,252 of them and I was using surveillance equipment to do that. Self-taught myself how to install it. So I thought, heck, I'm going to start my own business and go out on my own. I did. So we sold security equipment and then we also sold spy gear so I could hide a camera anywhere. And that was kind of a thing that I did.

Pete (03:17)
heads.

George (03:37)
But unfortunately, I got a lot of weirdos and perverts wanting me to hide cameras in places I shouldn't be. And I'm like, heck no, I'm done with this. So I had to do something else. I had to supplement the business somehow. And I was kind of a smart home geek. And I said, all right, screw it. I'm going to start selling smart home stuff. And then slowly but surely, people kept telling me I should talk on YouTube that I have the personality for it. So I all right, I'll try it. And then the rest is history.

Pete (04:01)
Yeah, so when did you start your channel? How many years ago was that?

Brandon Doyle (04:01)
Thanks.

George (04:03)
I started in

January of 2021 and actually, yeah, well, I actually started because of my loss prevention career. People always told me I should have a reality show because shoplifters do crazy things and or shy, I should write a book or something. So I actually started my channel telling those crazy stories. Um, I never really took off. Oddly enough, the only people that watched my channel were shoplifters. Um, so, uh, I was on the other side of the law from that.

Pete (04:06)
That was very precise.

What's up?

George (04:32)
So

I was like, screw this, I'm gonna do the other thing I'm passionate about, which is security and smart home.

Brandon Doyle (04:37)
So I'm not a thief by any means, but I am kind of curious, what the heck happens to these people? Like petty theft from like a Walmart, what do they do?

George (04:45)
We would, we kind of had to fight for every dollar. We didn't have the money that Walmart did. So if you stole from us, we were going to take you into our office. We were going to prosecute you with the police and it didn't really matter. I busted people for jelly bellies all the way up to, you know, $10,000 worth of electronics. But we had you arrested and not only that, but we also sued you civilly. We sued you for the product you stole. And then also we could sue you for our time. So you basically had to pay our salary.

while we were dealing with you. But that's basically what happened. And then if it was a bigger theft and you'd done it multiple times, it became a felony. Or I did have some people try to kill me, stab me and shoot me. And then at that point it became armed robbery. So sometimes I would put people away in prison.

Pete (05:29)
Wow, did anyone succeed in killing you?

Brandon Doyle (05:30)
So it's

George (05:31)
No.

Brandon Doyle (05:31)
more than just a slap on the wrist, huh? Are you allowed to physically grab them and tackle them or?

George (05:33)
No. yes. Well, if they were juveniles, it was a little bit of a slavender.

Back in the day, we used to, I actually broke out windows with my handcuffs. I ran through neighborhoods, I chased shoplifters all over the place. We did some crazy stuff back in the day. It has since calmed down and you can't do any of that. And I think back on it now, and it's just all so stupid, what we would do over in a Dita shirt or something like that, risking my life over candy or some cosmetic item, but I sure did. And in the heat of the moment, just, the adrenaline takes over.

It gets crazy.

Brandon Doyle (06:09)
Yeah,

they've gone soft now. Now it's just like a receipt checker at the door where it's like, yeah, you have a receipt, cool, go through. But I guarantee that that lady's not gonna chase me if I come storming by with the television.

George (06:21)
You

And that's exactly why I got out of it because I just couldn't handle that. I didn't like fighting and I didn't like having knives and guns pulled on me, but I also didn't like letting people go. And we got so lawsuit, you know, scared that I just had to get out of it. I just couldn't handle it.

Pete (06:38)
So when we were at CES, I stopped at the Walgreens because I forgot deodorant because I'm an idiot. But I had to they have all the deodorant in the Las Vegas Walgreens I was at was behind glass. Right. So I had to get somebody to help me. And I just understand how that's going to prevent theft. Like, I feel like after they gave that to me, I could have still walked out of the building with the deodorant without paying for it. So why would they put all that effort into?

George (07:04)
Well, back in the day, we used to have a return fraud. So people would just actually go out to the floor and walk it up and return it. So like baby formula, diapers, anything that was high dollar, they'd just go out to the floor, grab it, and then walk right up to the return counter and do a no receipt refund. So when that all started locking everything up, it was just to make it harder to do that. So it wasn't going to necessarily make it harder to steal. It was going to make it harder to return it.

Pete (07:05)
You

See

Gotcha. So here's the deal with criminals. I feel like a lot of times if they're clever enough to do that, they could get a real job that pays real money. Like why you gotta break... That's pretty clever, I think. I don't know. You could... Yeah.

Brandon Doyle (07:41)
Yeah, or become like a business owner, right? Like apply

these skills.

George (07:45)
Yeah.

I always said, you know, I would detain people that would have their jackets lined with tin foil, just because it wouldn't set off the door alarms when they went off. I had people with fake babies in strollers. I had people with fake casts. And we had organized retail theft that was like the retail mob. These kingpins would send in people every day to steal. They'd pay them 50 cents on the dollar in drugs or money. And I always thought if they would put that effort into good,

Pete (07:59)
Okay.

George (08:13)
they could solve world hunger or world peace because they've got these great ideas and it's a criminal enterprise. They've got the brains to do this. Everybody thinks they're stupid. They're not stupid. But if they put the effort to good, it'd be whole different world.

Pete (08:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. there are people out there that really struggle and that's it's winning money. But I feel like a lot of people that steal don't need they don't even need to steal. They just steal because they can not because they're like desperately poor or something like that. It just seems wild to me. But.

George (08:40)
There were a couple of different levels

to it. There were the people that did it out of necessity. There were the people we had a big problem with meth because we sold a lot of the meth ingredients that we'd get the dealers and the meth lab people that we call them smurfs. They would come in and buy Sudafed or steal Sudafed. Those people were very violent and those are the people that tried to kill me. And then we'd also just have the criminal enterprise people, the organized people. So there's different levels. There were kids that just were young pops doing it as a challenge, but there were different levels to it.

Brandon Doyle (09:10)
I've always wondered like how much Sudafed would I have to buy to get on a list? Because every time they take your ID and I'm like, ooh, am I approaching my limit?

George (09:10)
It was interesting.

Three boxes with the limit. So I would actually sit there, three boxes. So I would sit there and watch on my outdoor camera. I'd watch these cars pull up and they'd have like, you know, it'd be like a little Ford Escort, but there'd be like 10 people in it. And they'd all come in and buy their three boxes and one right after another. And you just watch them. And then I had a couple undercover cops that I would call and I would just say, hey, there's some Smurfs here. You should watch this car. They'd show up in the parking lot.

Pete (09:21)
Three boxes.

Brandon Doyle (09:21)
Three boxes, that's

it? man.

George (09:48)
And they followed them to their labs. And then they'd call me back and say, George, thanks. You just helped us bust a lab. But yeah, they'd come in and these just these ridiculously small cars, just full of tons of people to buy their Sudafed or they'd steal it. We eventually ended up putting the Sudafed behind the counter where you had to use your ID and have it be on the list. back in the day, you could just buy it. And we had to stop that for that reason.

Pete (10:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Man, I could use some Sudafed right now.

George (10:14)
Yeah.

Brandon Doyle (10:15)
So you started with

Loss Prevention. Originally the channel was Silver Hammer Surveillance, the name of your business at the time. You, like many others, have transitioned to using your name, going broader. How has that transition been for you and how has the audience adapted?

George (10:31)
I find that it really helped. find that there was no really lapse in for the audience. I just felt that I was kind of being pigeonholed into the security guy. And, you know, you know, I was starting to talk about cancer. I'm a cancer survivor. I started talking about smart home stuff. So I just felt the silver hammer surveillance. People just think security, security, security. But the, the transition was much easier than I thought. I was a little worried. I'd already kind of messed with the algorithm enough, you know, switching from talking about shoplifters, the smart home and security. then.

Pete (10:50)
Mm-hmm.

George (11:01)
Talking about my cancer journey, I was, you know, trying to upset the algorithm as much as possible unintentionally. But yeah, it went pretty smooth and I find that it's pretty beneficial. As we all know, we're kind of the brand. Our name is the brand. So I find that it's worked out well.

Brandon Doyle (11:18)
I can certainly relate to that in many ways. I had done a lot of lock reviews and it was kind of like, I'd do something different than it wouldn't get the traffic and, you know, testing locks isn't the most fun to be honest. So then yeah.

George (11:30)
No, it's not.

Pete (11:31)
that's great.

Brandon Doyle (11:34)
I as well transitioned to like doing more smart home tours. I had that as the name for a while, but then at the end of the day, like YouTube, it has you in the name. So it's like, it makes sense to have you be the brand. And so I agree a hundred percent with your, decision there. And we're seeing a lot of creators going the same route. So.

George (11:50)
And

that's another thing I was doing was the smart home tours. So Silver Hammer Surveillance, why is he doing smart home tours? So yeah. But yeah, now I can just talk about whatever I want because I'm me.

Pete (11:55)
I

Brandon Doyle (12:02)
And they're great tours. And I appreciate

how often you move because then we get a new tour and it's different.

George (12:07)
Yeah.

Pete (12:09)
Right,

so actually I did want to bring that up actually with the movie because and tours because you live in an apartment right now, right? George so.

George (12:16)
Yes, we moved

out of the burbs about 10 years ago and I just decided I'm going to rent and explore.

Pete (12:21)
So I think that's cool because almost all the smart home channels are people that own houses like I do. But as an apartment owner, you really do a lot of smart home stuff that you're able to do inside an apartment. You wanna talk a little bit about that?

George (12:37)
Yeah, so I'm very

lucky. A lot of these properties that I've lived in have been the same management company, minus maybe two. the last 10 years, I think I've lived in 13 places. Now, of those 13 places, think 10 of them are all the same management company. And they have just been really cool to let me do this.

Pete (12:52)
day

what are some of your favorite things to talk about on your show? Or some of the favorite things you've done in the apartments that you've had in your show?

George (13:06)
But because of my background, obviously I'm a big security guy, which does, that part does suck living in an apartment because I can't run wires like I normally would. So that's why I do a lot of Wi-Fi camera reviews because I'm kind of stuck in doing that. So when I do do wired camera system reviews as a meat freak, it really drives me nuts because I got cameras, wires jumping across the floor. People saw the behind the scenes. They would just be amazed, especially knowing me because it drives me nuts.

to do that for two or three weeks or whatever I'm doing to test the stuff. But yeah, so I do a lot of cameras. I love smart home lighting, locks, and switching locks probably once a week, smart locks. But yeah, I'm just trying to think what else. I've got a lot of randos things in here. I'm an Apple Home guy. Selling this stuff to the public, I like to try to keep it simple because I can always try to think about my customer.

And I always have done that. So I don't tinker too much. I'm just a pretty straightforward smart home guy. I just want it to work. So home assistant and all these advanced things. Yeah, I've dabbled in it, but I just keep it simple with Apple Home. So I've got the basics, security, lighting, robot vacuums, TVs all over the place, Sonos speakers, HomePods everywhere, Apple TVs everywhere. Yeah.

Pete (14:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, you've done... Go ahead.

Brandon Doyle (14:30)
So I

haven't been to your new place, but when I was at your last apartment, one of the things I really appreciated was that how everything was so neat and orderly, how the cable management was just on point everywhere. And you're a man who loves his brand. So you're all in on whatever it is. So if you're into Sonos at the time, everything's Sonos. If you're Apple, it's all Apple. And your transition from Adidas to Nike was pretty entertaining for me to see.

George (14:47)
I do.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. I sold $50,000 worth of Adidas just because my brain can't allow me to have both. So I saw the Nike Air movie. Yeah. I saw the Nike Air movie and I was like, found out a little bit more about the CEO of Nike and how it started. And I just identified it a little bit more. It kind of seemed a little more rebellious. know, Adidas kind of just doesn't have the same, I don't know, background. And so I sold $50,000 worth of Adidas just because I was such an Adidas guy.

that's good. I'm not a Nike guy. I got rid of it all because I just have, I don't know what the OCD or what it is, like Brandon said, like Brandon said, you want me to like your brand because when I do, I will go all in.

Brandon Doyle (15:34)
100 %

Pete (15:34)
I

Brandon Doyle (15:37)
I say that from a place of love.

Pete (15:45)
I gotta be honest.

Brandon Doyle (15:45)
Yeah, and it's not

just one, it's like, we got Sonos in every room. We got Akara everywhere.

George (15:52)
Yes.

Pete (15:53)
I legit don't know what my shoes are. I'm trying to think of what brand of my shoes that I have, that I wear every day. I think it's Adidas. I think it's stripes. But that's how little I care. You are so opposite of that. Brands don't matter to me. Just looks good.

George (16:11)
We live in a two bedroom apartment and my wife has to her own wing because my entire master closet is shoes. I think in a very brief period of time, I think I've got 200 pair of Nike in there and in a small apartment, that's a lot of shoes.

Pete (16:18)
Wow.

200 pairs of Nikes? Like, wow.

George (16:28)
Yeah. And then again, I just

switched to Nike, I don't know, a year, two years ago, a year ago. So, um, yeah, that's 200 pairs in two years.

Pete (16:33)
Wow, that... You should... You should start a

separate channel, a shoe channel. Like, those sneakerheads, like their... their YouTubes and things like that. You could,

George (16:45)
I keep thinking I should because Nike is definitely a part of my life. I would hope so. That'd be great.

Brandon Doyle (16:50)
You get a Nike sponsorship. You need Nike

and Apple to sponsor you could be the poster child. You should be out in Miami right now for that store launch and the new Apple flagship store.

George (16:56)
Yes I do. I could be.

I know

we're going in March, so I'm going to check it out. But yes, I should be there right now.

Brandon Doyle (17:07)
So you're testing smart locks. Are you just doing those on the apartment door or did you build a rig like Pete did?

George (17:13)
I did not build the rig. need to build a rig like Pete did because that's pretty sweet and it would really be beneficial here in an apartment. I just had to turn away a Lockley lock that I was excited to try because it wouldn't fit the hole in my deadbolt. And because it's a metal door and I don't own it, I couldn't drill my own hole, which sucks. So little things like that are when I wish I had a house or a rig.

Pete (17:36)
The which lock that you lock was that?

George (17:38)
It was the one with the facial recognition.

Pete (17:40)
okay. You don't actually need. Okay, that's the best lock ever, by the way. But you don't actually need that bolt thing is optional. You don't have to put that separate drill hole in if you don't want to. I'm just pointing out for you.

George (17:55)
Yeah, was there a ring to take off? Because I couldn't find it because my hole in my deadbolt was too small for that lock.

Pete (18:02)
Huh. Really?

Brandon Doyle (18:03)
so the main mechanism. Yeah, there's two different sizes and yes, the smaller.

George (18:04)
Yeah, the main mechanism wouldn't fit in. The

Pete (18:06)
the main makers were too big. thought...

George (18:08)
main mechanism wouldn't fit in. Yeah.

Pete (18:08)
okay. Interesting.

Brandon Doyle (18:10)
It is possible

that that piece does detach, but I don't have that lock in front of me. Pete's got one, it's installed in the rig.

Pete (18:15)
I don't recall. It's down, yeah, it's down in my basement.

But yeah, it's.

George (18:21)
I've

had a couple other locks where I was able to remove some sort of ring or something. I couldn't find it on this one. So I don't know. Maybe I returned it too quick. yeah, I didn't get to try that one. So right now I'm on the back to the Acara U200. That's my standby when I'm not testing others.

Pete (18:24)
Yep.

So

why don't you tell us as a security expert in the home, are the top things that people should be doing smart home wise to secure their home and keep their 200 shoes safe?

George (18:52)
Well, I mean, it's the basics. You know, you got cameras, you've got locks and you've got lighting. People don't understand how important lighting is for security, especially with automation and things making people think you're home when you're not. But those are my top three. You know, you can also get a security system. If you've watched my channel, you know, I'm not as big as proponent as security systems as I am with cameras because I'd rather be proactive than reactive.

And I think burglar alarms are very reactive. You know, the thiefs are in your house. Yeah. You've got the loud siren. Yeah. Maybe if you've got a monitor police will be called, but usually they're calling you before they call the police. So my theory is just have cameras that'll catch them before they get to your house and call the police your damn self. So, don't know. But anyway, yeah. So cameras, burglar alarms, lighting, smart locks. And of course people will say with smart locks, we can defeat them. We can get in. Well, you can get into any law.

Pete (19:46)
Yeah,

George (19:49)
You know, smart locks

Pete (19:49)
for sure.

George (19:50)
are just going to. Yeah, for sure.

Brandon Doyle (19:52)
you'll at least have notification. And it brings a lot of peace of mind too that like, Hey, did I remember to lock the door today? Having it automatically locked.

George (19:54)
Yes. Yes.

Absolutely. And the

auto lock feature for people that forget to lock their doors. and I'll, yeah. Or people that don't, another big thing is the interior garage door. People never lock that door. And if you put a smart lock in there, you're much more apt to do so. And I've been a part of some horrible, horrible situations where I've come into after some home invasions and they always go through the garage. And it's because they somehow got your garage door open. And then that interior door is just.

a fool's paradise, you can just get right in and have access. And then God forbid your home, because some of these people don't care. And, you know, I was on the, I talked to somebody, she was just crying to me on the phone because she was upstairs while her boyfriend was downstairs fighting home invaders. And luckily he lived. But when I went to install the cameras, he was just beat to crap. He was just beat up. And it was a horrible situation, but that's because they went to that interior garage door. So

locks, you know, it's just a lot easier to just have it done automatically when you forget.

Brandon Doyle (21:01)
The garage door is such a huge thing. And oftentimes as a real estate agent, when people list their houses, the agents will come in and they want to secure the property. So they lock that lock and then the homeowner returns and they don't actually carry keys and they go to open that door. They're like, I can't get in. It's pretty comical. But I've actually heard stories of someone's car getting broken into. They took the garage door opener.

Pete (21:15)
you

George (21:18)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Pete (21:23)
you

Brandon Doyle (21:28)
They figured out their home address because they had their GPS on there. They go to their house. They know they're not home. open the garage door, close it behind them, load up the van from the inside, and then just drive off. And the neighbors don't think anything of it because it just looks like you're kind of like a service person over or like you're moving. So pretty scary stuff.

George (21:47)
people

don't realize that's the number, that's the number one reason thieves break into cars. It's not for the stuff in the cars. It's for a garage door opener. So yeah, that happens all the time.

Pete (21:55)
Really?

So what would you recommend if you said that one guy was beat to a pulp? Should we try to protect our house? If we're home and somebody comes in the house, is it worth trying to stop them or should you just call the cops from where you are and just let them know?

George (22:12)
No, I mean, no, when

I would, when I would do that stuff, I was a trained professional, you know, so I was basically trained to fight back in my lost prevention days. yeah, when I started that job, I weighed 175 pounds, I had hair, I had no tattoos, and I got thrown around like a rag doll on a side note. So I shaved the head, got the tats, bolted up a little bit and people didn't mess with me anymore. But anyway, but yeah, as a homeowner, you shouldn't do that. Like even in my lost prevention job.

Pete (22:20)
I mean, I'm pretty big guy, so.

George (22:41)
If a cashier or somebody was robbed, you know, you just let it happen and you call the police after. And that's exactly what you should do in a home invasion. Otherwise you're to get yourself killed. They'll go lock yourself up somewhere where they can't get in. Call the police if you can and just stay there. He should not have done that. He is very lucky to be alive. And luckily he was just fought him long enough that they got scared and they took off. But if they had some more time, he'd probably be dead.

Pete (23:07)
Yeah, so that's, I feel like, I feel like, so I'm weak and I'm a wimp and I feel like that's actually boded well for me. I feel like we live a long time because we know our limitations. I'm not encouraging anybody to come up and threaten me, but you're gonna win that battle. just, yeah, so I...

George (23:10)
So don't engage.

Yeah.

And that's one of the reasons I got out of the loss prevention game. became a father and like I said earlier, fighting over an adidas shirt. I mean, what am I doing? When I was young and stupid, that stuff was fun. But as I got older and became a dad, that's not fun. So yeah, you're better off just, yeah, no. It's not for me anymore.

Pete (23:37)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, for sure.

Brandon Doyle (23:48)
And like the big companies, like that's just the cost of doing business for them. call it shrink. And that's why things are more expensive. I've always said, like, you can tell how nice an area is if you go to their local like Target or Walmart, and if everything's locked up, it's like, I'm just trying to buy like something simple. Like I'm trying to buy the smart plug or this adapter. I mean, I can't do that. Like I totally get it for like the Nintendo games and stuff.

George (23:52)
Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Pete (23:55)
So how do you-

George (24:03)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah.

Brandon Doyle (24:15)
But like when everything's behind a lock, it's like, hmm, where am I?

George (24:20)
That's where the organized retail theft come in, because they just come out and clear out shelves. You know, I had them just, I caught a few that just, you know, back in the day, I remember iPods, when the iPods came out, I had a group of people just wipe out every iPod we had, and then just run out of the emergency exit. So when they lock them up, they're just making that part harder. We'd have people just load up carts and run out the front door, I caught somebody with $5,000 worth of stuff in a cart, and they just bolted.

So that's why they lock it up to try to make that harder. Because otherwise they're just cleaning out shelves and putting them in a cart or putting them in a diffel bag and just running for it.

Brandon Doyle (24:56)
It's sad. And here we actually have a baby powder is locked up, which is like really depressing because like that person's definitely stealing it out of necessity. Like so.

George (25:04)
You

Yeah. It depends on the baby stuff. Cause baby formula used to be huge, like I said, for the returns. Baby formula is expensive. A lot of baby stuff is expensive. People steal a lot of kids clothes because they can resell it. So yeah, all the baby stuff is high theft. And like I said, I get fake strollers and fake babies and just all sorts of stuff. And they just hide it in the, they'd have strollers full of tin foil. I had people that would clean out like a big stroller box.

Pete (25:29)
you

George (25:35)
And empty that out and then fill it with all sorts of stuff and then go up to the register and try to buy it for the stroller price. Um, knowing full well, it was full of like $2,000 worth of stuff. Um, so yeah, people get creative, but the baby stuff was huge.

Brandon Doyle (25:48)
Interesting So on your channel you're a big proponent of alibi the whole security system tell us about your relationship with them and how that's kind of evolved and Yeah

George (25:50)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, so Alibi is the wired NVR systems, which if you're in the security game, that's the most reliable way to go. Now Alibi is a professional grade, so it's not the cheap retailer stuff. When I was in the loss prevention game and I was trying to branch out of my business, I was looking for somebody to sell their stuff. And they actually sold us all the hidden cameras that we used to install. And I tried them and they had a dealer program and then the rest is history. Now, since then,

You know, I've had every brand known the man try to stalk me both through Silver Hammer and through the YouTube channel. And I'm always, you know, trying new stuff. But Alibi just has always been the best for me. They've got a 1 % fail rate. And as all of you know, that's very important. You don't want the stuff to fail. Professional grade housing, the best weatherproofing, the best vandal proofing. They've got customer service in Austin, Texas, as we know, a lot of this stuff. You can't get somebody on the phone if you want help.

They've just been really good to me and I'm a loyal guy. And when people take care of me, I'll take care of them. I don't work for them. I'm not sponsored by them. I just love them. But you know, I've tried them all. I tried Realink. I've tried every camera brand you can think of. I just always go back to them. So a good company, good people that take good care of me and take good care of my customers. Now on YouTube, you know, before I was the local Omaha, company. Now I've sold systems in every, all 50 states.

into Canada, I'd go worldwide except Alibaba won't ship worldwide. So now when I'm shipping the stuff, I'm not there to support them locally, like I would be in Omaha. I know this company will take care of them. I know that they've got that tech support team sitting there. They'll help them with the warranty stuff. So yeah, they've just been good to me. They take care of my customers. They take care of my YouTube subscribers. And that goes a long way for me.

Brandon Doyle (27:50)
So you're still a dealer. People are finding your videos on your YouTube channel about security, about placement, about best practices. They see that you are really a big fan of these products. They'll reach out for advice. And so basically you're giving them consultations and then picking out the system for them and then shipping it. And then it's on them to install or do they work with a local installer? How does that work out?

George (27:53)
Yes.

It goes both ways. I never wanted to sell anything on YouTube. It's just one of those things when you're talking about home security, you tend to talk about your favorite thing in the background and people started asking me about it. So then I was like, okay, I used to have a showroom in Omaha where people could come in and look at it. These people across the country started calling me because I am a weirdo that has my phone number and my YouTube descriptions. yeah, because of, yeah.

Brandon Doyle (28:38)
That's how I found you. I just called you one

day and I'm like, hey, I'm gonna come tour your house.

George (28:43)
But because of that, yeah, people started calling me. But yeah, you know, it is professional grade, but you can do it yourself if you feel comfortable. I did do a couple of installation videos trying to help you in that regard. And that, that applies to all brands, not just Alibi. I tried to go through it step by step, just like we would as we showed up at a house to do it. But yeah, otherwise people get local electricians to do it. If electrician 101, you're running cat five, cat six cables from point A to point B. If an electrician can't do that, they shouldn't be an electrician.

so a lot of electricians are very willing to do stuff with, know, some of them will try to sell you their cheap junk. but the ones that won't, they can do this. No problem. So yeah, we've had great success with people all over the country, just getting electricians to do it, or they do it themselves.

Brandon Doyle (29:28)
Yeah, I have to imagine that like every security camera company and lock company is reaching out to you and stocking you, finding you at CES and like, no, no, try our camera. What's your vetting process like? You can't just feature everything.

George (29:40)
Yep.

Yeah, I was actually just I'm about to release a video where I was actually just talking about this. I mean, you guys know you get these emails every day. You filter out probably 90 % of them, maybe 95 % of them. So I'm looking for reputable brands that I've at least heard before, because as a security guy, you know, in the trades and stuff, I hear about this stuff other than YouTube. But if it's just some rando Amazon brand, I'm not going to do it. They've got to have some sort of validity to it.

something I've heard of, maybe a startup that looks promising. Just, you've got to have some sort of reputation before I will put them on the channel. I've had an interesting experience with the camera I'm about to release, the video I'm about to release. It hasn't gone the greatest. So you win some, you lose some, but they were a reputable brand and wanted to give them a shot. But yeah, so I mean, you know, you get the stuff from Amazon. I don't know, 30 emails a day, maybe more.

And I just say, no, no, no, no, no. But yeah, if it's a wreck.

Pete (30:46)
Do you say no? Okay.

Do you say no, no, no, or do you just ignore them? I prefer to just ignore them.

George (30:52)
I do a little bit of both. I wasn't an ignorer until Apple Intelligence with the auto replies. So now you just hit not interested. It formulates your email and you're done. I find that that stops them from contacting me again because otherwise they'll contact me. Yeah.

Pete (31:06)
That's true. I was

I was afraid if I contacted them, they'd be like, we got one. Even if it's a no, they'll be like, we know he's going to bite someday.

George (31:16)
And you know that happens a lot because if you do say no, then we've got this instead or we've got this instead. And so then they keep trying to contact you. so, yeah, that's what. Yeah.

Pete (31:20)
Yeah.

Brandon Doyle (31:24)
At Sales 101, all you've done is just

verify that we have a valid number in a way to reach you, that you will reply. I'm going to come back in three months,

Pete (31:28)
Exactly.

George (31:30)
Yes. I tend to reply if

I, yeah, and I tend to reply if I think I might like something of theirs in the future. But if I think that it's just an Amazon brand and it's not going to happen, then I'll probably just ignore them.

Pete (31:39)
Mm-hmm.

So George, I...

Brandon Doyle (31:45)
One thing I appreciate

about you is that you have a lot of integrity. so like if a company wrongs you, you will hold onto that. It's like vengeance. So it goes both ways though. Like you love brands, but you also hate brands and you're not afraid to say it. Some people are just like, and they just ignore it. But you'll be like, no, this product is junk. And here's why. Vince is kind of the same one.

George (31:54)
it's

I do hold a grudge. I do hold a grudge.

Yes.

Yeah, even when they're sponsored, I tell brands up front,

you're going to have a problem with me because I'm going to tell it like it is. I don't care if it's sponsored or not. I mean, people watch me to get, you know, that attitude from me and I'm not going to alter it. It's just not me. So I don't need the money. I don't need the sponsorship. I'm just sponsored it, you know, because that's YouTube. You just take sponsored videos once in a while, but I will tell them up front. It's going to happen or it's not going to happen. I mean, I'm going to tell it like it is or it's not going to happen.

Pete (32:38)
So George, I have a question for you about, you talked earlier about video cameras and how you think that's better than a security system because you can catch them earlier. But I was thinking about that and like, I have a video camera system and I've got the video doorbell and I get notifications when people show up or whatever, but we have people coming and going all the time that I just, I ignore it basically, right? I don't pay attention to that. And so the only reason I would have, and I haven't had to use it yet is,

If something happened, I would be able to go back and look at the camera, the guy, happened, but I'm not actively using it. Is there a better way to get my system so that I would, the notifications at least would give some indication that something is afoot as opposed to just normal activity.

George (33:21)
Well, that's where you can get, you know, a better system where you can just drill it down. You can do motion zones. You can get facial recognition where we'll actually know if it's you, your, your daughter, your son, your, your cousin, whatever it is. And then if it's a stranger, you look, if it's somebody, you know, you don't look, you can really, if you get a good enough system, you can really drill it down to where you don't have to worry about the dog walkers and the people, you know, walk when their kids to school or whatever it may be. you know, you're going to get some false alarms once in a while, but you need to drill down to really.

you fine tune it to just worry about what you're worried about, which is strangers and possible intruders and things like that. The other thing about cameras, as far as being proactive, and I say this all the time, is you have no idea how many times the camera system has paid for itself without you knowing it, because it prevented something just for existing. If you have a good camera system, and this is the difference between professional grade and let's say Ring, if you've got a Ring video doorbell, a thief could care less.

But if you've got some camera that looks hardcore and professional grade and they've never seen it before, like we discussed earlier, thieves are smart. And if they see that you've got the good stuff and your neighbors got the ring, they'll go to the ring house. So it's not just about the alerts and everything as far as the proactive piece. It's about actually just the cameras being on your house. Now there are thieves that don't care. And those thieves are coming in no matter what. And you can only do what you can do. But...

Sometimes it's just the existence of the cameras in addition to all the things you were talking about. But yeah, with a good system, you can really fine tune it. mean, you're going to get false alarms no matter what, but it's better to know than to not.

Pete (35:00)
Yeah, yeah, I suppose. just, I basically shut, had the ring notifications and I pretty much, I'm like, I don't need to be notified every time someone is coming to my freaking door. Right? So, um, yeah, I'll have to.

George (35:11)
Yeah. And a lot of times,

you know, maybe the front of the house is different than the back of the house, the back of the house, or there's not as many people. That's when you have your alerts just on full blown. And on the front, you know, that's where you do the motion zones and you kind of really fine tune it just to areas you're worried about. So you're not just getting people passing in the street.

Brandon Doyle (35:29)
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but like I think a lot of people think these security devices prevent the problem when in reality it's more about deterring awareness and then documentation after the fact.

George (35:44)
Yes. And, you know, people, people on my channel come at me with some of the craziest things ever. I mean, people coming out of helicopters and dropping down on rope ladders and belly crawling across their yard. If those things are happening to you, you got, you got bigger problems. The camera system's not going to help you. The alarm system's not going to help you. You need help. need law enforcement. need Homeland security. Something's going on.

Pete (35:58)
Wow

Brandon Doyle (36:00)
Thank

Pete (36:09)
Yeah, right.

George (36:11)
So things are gonna happen, but yes, the deterrents alone is the biggest thing as far as being proactive. That's my favorite thing about them is being proactive. And as I said, they pay for themselves all the time because they stop something from happening. But another thing, and people say this isn't true, but it's so true, I cannot tell you how many times that my customer's video has caught somebody because of that video. The police, before the Ring Video Doorbell changed everything.

They did not have any evidence to work off hardly ever. Now they don't have the manpower to support the evidence they have from all these video cameras out there, just the doorbells alone. And I can't tell you how many crimes have been, you know, I'm talking about it. I just talked about on Instagram yesterday. We had our Jeep broken into out in our driveway back in 2008. And at that time, nobody had cameras. And the police actually were watching me because they thought I was a drug dealer.

Brandon Doyle (37:07)
Exactly. I

was gonna say, no, back in the day, if you're the house of cameras, like what is that weirdo doing over there? Now it's like, cool, this is like a neighborhood that cares.

George (37:08)
And the...

Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

And until I caught those people out in our Jeep, I caught them and they were terrorized in two different neighborhoods. And we caught them because of that video. And next thing you know, I was their hero. But, know, I've got, I don't know, lost check 6,000 customers and I can't tell you how many people that I've helped, you know, to that's part of the service I provide, especially when it was local. I would help them review footage. I would help them liaison with the law enforcement, get a relationship with them from the law prevention thing.

So I have helped a lot of people catch a lot of bad guys and bad girls because of their video. So even if it happens and they get away with it, it gives the police something to work with. And that's huge.

Pete (37:59)
So as a security expert as you are, don't give away any secrets to the bad guys, but do you feel like you know enough that you could pretty much break into anyone's house without getting caught? Like, do you know all the tricks?

George (38:11)
Easily. And same goes for the retail thing. If I wanted to, I could be one of those retail mob bosses. could have such an organization. I mean, I could get away with murder in those retail stores. But yeah. So yes, same thing with houses. Same thing with the businesses, because we do a lot of commercial jobs too. But yeah, between the...

Brandon Doyle (38:31)
I a lot of this

is like if it requires the cloud internet connection or it needs power. How do you think you could circumvent those two things? I don't know.

George (38:40)
Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. And I get a lot of comments on my channel about wifi jamming. and that just seems to be a, you know, it does happen. It is possible, but, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't happen that often. Again, if it happens to you, you're probably being targeted. but yeah, you can unplug things. can, you know, defeat wifi. That's why a wired NVR system, like I was talking about from Alibi is best. If you get yourself a backup power supply, even if you have a power outage or somebody

Pete (38:44)
Man,

George (39:13)
you know, takes out the power, it's still working. It doesn't need internet, so you're not relying on your Wi-Fi. Whereas with these Wi-Fi cameras, that is definitely something that these thieves can do to defeat you. They can take out the power and nothing's working.

Pete (39:26)
Okay, so I've never stolen anything from anybody as far as I know. Unless it was accident and I didn't realize I was doing it, but I have no desire to steal anything. But I really want to try to steal a kayak from like Dick's Sporting Goods, like just to see if I could do it. Like that's like I would return it right away. But I was like, I feel like

I feel like that would be really fun to try to do that. And I feel like I could probably get the store to help me put it in my car. if you just act like you already paid for it.

Brandon Doyle (39:55)
It's all about confidence, baby. You just walked in there.

Hey, man, I need help loading this in my car. John over there said, you're the guy to help. Let's do this. And they would walk it right out the door for you.

Pete (40:04)
Exactly.

George (40:09)
And I watch that happen all the time. Like I said, those people that just load up carts, they just walk right out and half the time an employee will help them get out because they don't realize it. I mean, yeah.

Brandon Doyle (40:18)
They're just trying to do their job and be helpful. They

assume the best of people.

George (40:23)
Yep. I had one guy that actually told everybody while he was walking around stealing that he worked there. And even though you'd think you'd know all your colleagues, they believed him. And so they just let him do whatever he was doing because he had a shirt on that had the company on it. And he was smart enough to do that. And they just, he works here. He's fine. He's just walking that out for him. Yep. Yep.

Pete (40:23)
Yeah.

yeah

Brandon Doyle (40:41)
Just wear a red polo and some khakis, you'll be fine.

Pete (40:46)
Yeah, so

I mean, it is that confidence thing. Like, so I do stand-up comedy. I used to tour with Louis Anderson, famous comedian in these parts. And we'd stay at hotel and I would have to go down there and get the keys for our rooms and stuff. And I'd be like, you know, can you give me the key to Louis Anderson's room? I'm helping, I'm his assistant or whatever. And they would just give it to me. I'm like, you're not gonna verify this at all? You're just gonna give me the Yeah, okay.

George (41:14)
Well, that's, that's just where like the employees, like I was, we had an orientation on the first day of every employee and I went over the top and just kind of told them everything right up front. And sometimes it scared them and they never came back, but I didn't care because I wanted them to be aware because these, people would be so smart. you know, we had a, we had a group of people, it was a group of like 10 people and they would come in. had, it was Lincoln, Nebraska here. We had four different stores.

And they would come in and one person would come in and scope out an item and they like TVs. They would scope out a TV. They would take a picture of the barcode. They would take it to another person back in their lab. They would replicate that barcode, but they would change the price. A second person would come in, put the new sticker on. Then the next day, another person would come in and buy that TV at the cheaper price. And this is where the employee thing drove me nuts. You'd have some, you know,

big TV go through for $69.99 and the cashier is stupid enough to let it go through. And because they see the barcodes, they're like, this must be legit. So then they would go back and another person would come in the next day and return that TV for the full price after they removed their fake sticker. So because they had a different person coming in every time, it took us a long time to prove that all these different people were involved. But yeah, I mean, you talk about locking out the kayak, I mean,

You don't have to walk out. You can just go up to the register and have some cashier just say, ah, that's that TV that hundred inch TV is 69 99. Sure. Sure.

Pete (42:45)
Yeah,

I mean, 16 or 17 year old, know, they're trying their best, they're, yeah, you can get intimidated by people who say they know what they're doing. So, all right, we are.

Brandon Doyle (42:54)
You would think now with

AI, it'd be a lot easier to find these patterns with facial recognition and stuff and across stores and across different brands even because they want to collaborate to stop this thing.

George (42:59)
Yeah.

You

know, in 2014 is when I left and even then we had a program that was flagging everything. Cause we had one dude that just had like six different credit cards and he worked at our customer service desk and he would just return items himself on six different credit cards. And we just didn't find out until it was like $40,000 later. Because of that case, we developed a program where we could just flag everything and we as loss prevention people reviewed it. Whether it was legit or not, we at least reviewed it. But yeah, with AI now,

I'm sure that's just even more advanced, completely blow out what we were using out of the water in 2014. But yeah, it'd be very interesting to know. yeah, for sure.

Vinny (43:49)
I have a retail background

too, George. Back in, even when I worked my target days, there'd be times where you would put an LP, would put items on an end cap and then you were able to like, well, AI technology at that time, where if something was removed from that end cap, then it would flag the video so you could go back and review. You would almost bait people.

George (44:10)
yeah.

Right.

Vinny (44:18)
keeping something unsecurity wrapped

George (44:19)
Yeah. Yep.

Vinny (44:21)
on an NCAT that you know is high theft so you can basically find somebody that's gonna steal anyways.

George (44:28)
Absolutely. And when we had the organized retail theft, if we had people that were getting away from us, like when we weren't there or whatever, when we weren't working, we would do that same thing. We would just get the item that we know that they like. We put it in the exact spot that we wanted to be in so we could watch it. And then we enticed them to come in and take it and they would, and then we'd get them. But yeah, Target did have that and it worked very well for them.

Brandon Doyle (44:53)
All right, George, it wouldn't be the technical difficulties podcast if we didn't ask you what your biggest frustration in the smart home world is.

Pete (44:53)
Good fight.

George (45:00)
That's just when things don't work. I'm an Apple lover. right now, know, come on, our lovely voice assistant, you know, I've got eight HomePods in here. You know, the closest one is supposed to listen to you. And when it doesn't and your phone answers instead, and you're trying to play music, you know, I work from home. I'm a home audio guy. I want all my music to be on all my speakers. When that doesn't work, it frustrates me.

So in general, I hate to call out my lovely friends at Apple, but I find that most of the things in here work flawlessly. Lutron, Philips Hue, my robot vacuum, I'm a dreamy guy, but it's Apple. It's Apple in my homepots. And now with, you know, 18.2 and 18.3 and Apple intelligence, come on, this stuff should all work. So maybe with these new homepots coming, it's going to solve the problem. But right now, my biggest problem is

I'm an Apple Home guy and my Apple Home hubs are not what they should be. So that's my biggest frustration.

Brandon Doyle (46:01)
You must love

the new Sonos app.

George (46:03)
I do. Hey, I'm not a, I don't have a problem with it. I, uh, I'm not one that has the problem with it. So I feel bad for someone else because they have gone through the wringer over that thing. Um, I don't know. It's not that bad. I don't know what everybody freaking out about it. Now I think the CEO has changed. mean, someone else has just gone through it with this app, but I don't mind it.

Brandon Doyle (46:27)
Fair enough. Are you team Sonos or team Apple right now?

George (46:29)
I've got both. I'm sitting here looking at a TV that's got a home. Yeah. So I, I've been using Sonos for my TVs and HomePods for my music. And that's how I compromise. Yeah. I mean, I, I.

Brandon Doyle (46:31)
it's hybrid again.

Pete (46:34)
I've got both, why wouldn't you have both?

Brandon Doyle (46:41)
And then you can just walk up to

the device and transfer the music. That's cool.

George (46:46)
Yeah. Yeah. And I've, I've sold Sonos way too many times on Facebook marketplace. I can't do it again. I have got the, I have bought a complete Sonos systems. Yes. Okay. I mean, I take it off 20 % usually. Um, because usually it's usually it's like two months old when I changed my mind. Uh, cause I'm a ridiculous human being. Um, but it is what it is.

Brandon Doyle (46:52)
taking it in the shorts every time. What's the resale on something like that?

That's not true.

Yeah, I need

to time my purchases from when you change over. So what size shoe are you? And when do you think you're going to go back to Adidas? I don't need 200 shoes, but I could probably use more than three.

George (47:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

We can begin.

Pete (47:25)
We should we should explore these OCD problems with you again in a future episode thank you so much George for coming on Yeah, it was was great a unique perspective loved the security talk at some of those stories you had so yeah, we'll have you on again, but for Brandon for Vince he showed up events and for me Thanks for watching. Please subscribe

George (47:33)
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Pete (47:50)
and we'll see y'all next time.