5 Home Office Security Essentials for Telecommuters and Freelancers

Working from home certainly has its share of perks and benefits. This is true whether you run your own business or you telecommute with a more traditional employer. You have the freedom to set up your workstation as you see fit and you enjoy greater flexibility with hours and with the tools that you use to get the job done. But this also means that you need to take home office security into your own hands.

Unless you want to hire a security detail to follow you around and to mind your house around the clock, it’s important that you take steps to secure your home office. There are a number of security apps for mobile devices that come in handy, in this regard, but you’ve also got to invest in some physical products to make sure you, your data, and your equipment all stay safe and secure.

Netatmo Welcome Home Security Camera

Perhaps the not-so-curious observation about home office security is that it naturally straddles into the established industry of traditional home security too. A great product that you might consider is the Netatmo Welcome. It connects to your network via Wi-Fi but also stores the video files locally on a microSD card. You get usual features like live monitoring, but what sets it apart is its facial recognition technology. It can tell you when certain persons are present or absent. Alternatively, you can look at other IP cameras like the Nest Cam. The Netatmo Welcome is listed at $199 but oftentimes sells for closer to $100.

GadgetsPro Hidden Security Camera

Part of the problem with most surveillance cameras is that they look precisely like surveillance cameras. Not so with the secret security camera from GadgetsPro. Disguised as an unassuming USB charger, it also houses a full HD 1080p camera that’s completely hidden from view. The USB charger still works too. There is no live monitoring, however, as the video files are simply stored on the built-in microSD card. Given this, you will need physical access to the device to view the footage. Pricing ranges from $32.99 to $49.99 for 8GB to 32GB capacities.

SentrySafe Electronic Fire-Safe

Keeping your documents and belongings safe is positively essential for effective home office security. And what better place to keep those things safe than in a SentrySafe Digital Electronic Fire-Safe. This not only protects your belongings against unauthorized access but the safe itself is UL classified for fire endurance, surviving temperatures as high as 1700 degrees Fahrenheit (927 degrees Celsius) for periods as long as one hour. It’ll also survive minor flooding for depths up to 8 inches for up to 24 hours. Pricing varies on SentrySafe safes depending on size, starting as low as $30 for smaller versions and going up to about $300 for models with up to 2.0 cubic feet of space.

Google Drive

The materials you keep in your fire safe may be able to withstand the physical catastrophe of a fire, flood, or major storm, but the files on your computer or external hard drive might not. This is why you should maintain a backup of your most important files in the cloud through a service like Google Drive. You can further extend its functionality with a range of Google Drive add-ons too. You get the assurance of Google name here, but you can just as easily also look into Dropbox, Box.net, OneDrive, iCloud, or any number of other cloud-based storage solutions. Google Drive provides you with 15GB of storage for free. From there, you can upgrade to 100GB for $1.99/month ($19.99/year), 1TB for $9.99/month ($99.99/year) or 10TB for $99.99/month.

AmazonBasics Cross-Cut Shredder

Sometimes, keeping your private data safe means being able to suitably destroy it. The AmazonBasics cross-cut paper and credit card shredder is an excellent solution for this. When choosing a paper shredder, those are two features you can’t go without cross-cut (instead of strip-cut) and the ability to shred credit cards. If you want, you can invest even further into micro-cut shredders. The most affordable model from AmazonBasics sells for about $30 and can shred up to six sheets at a time. Larger versions, like this 24-sheet version that can also shred CDs, retails for about $150.