5 Tips for a Worry-free Long Weekend Away

Come Friday, the country’s national highways will once again be packed as scores of South Africans make their way to various destinations in an attempt to squeeze the last few drops of sweet summer from the rapidly-fading season. A mass exodus from all the major cities on Thursday afternoon will mark the start of the four-day weekend, the sun glinting off the roofs of cars, caravans and Venter trailers like the scales of some gigantic metallic snake coiled along the length of the N3.

Make sure that you get the most out of your long weekend away with these five tips promoting maximum peace of mind.

Inspect your mode of transport

Copyright: ikonoklast / 123RF Stock Photo

Nothing puts a damper on holiday festivities faster than car trouble. Not only can it be extremely dangerous getting stranded out in the middle of nowhere (we’ve all seen The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn, haven’t we?), but a breakdown is likely to end up costing you precious time and money that could have been better spent on typical holiday revelry.

Be sure to check the following aspects of your vehicle:

• That your tyres (including the spare) are all in a good condition
• Fluid levels (water, oil, brake fluid)
• That you have enough fuel
• Lights and indicators (including those of your trailer if you are taking one along)

Finally, if your insurance company offers roadside assistance, save the number on speed dial.

Confirm your reservation beforehand

Again, if countless horror movie tropes about cannibalistic families preying on desperate shelter-seekers are anything to go by, the last thing you want is to have to look for last-minute accommodation because your original booking didn’t pan out. Always confirm check-in times and dates a good couple of days before your trip, and be sure to take proof of payment and reservation with you.

Read some online reviews

Copyright: jirsak / 123RF Stock Photo

In the Information Age, there’s precious little information that can’t be found online, including accounts of previous visitors’ experiences at guesthouses, B & Bs, hotels and resorts. Do yourself a favour and search for ratings and reviews about your intended accommodation. Websites such as Booking.com, Tripadvisor and Lekker Slaap enable you to book directly via the website as well as read reviews. You can really save yourself a world of discomfort and disappointment by doing some online research first. Tried and true!

Check news sites for information about strikes that could affect you

There are a number of ways that your trip could be adversely affected by industrial action. Firstly, if there’s a fuel strike planned, it’s important that you stock up on enough of the stuff to get you to your destination and back. Fill up your tank, fill a couple of cans and keep them in a cool, safe place away from heat and open flames. Secondly, strikes often turn violent, so if you’re travelling through affected areas, you might want to consider a route change.

All-important security

We all knew we were building up to this point, didn’t we? But concerns about security amount to one of the leading causes of worry during vacations, probably because we are not comfortable with relinquishing control and leaving our homes and possessions unattended for extended periods of time.

But fear not, you don’t have to give up control completely. For example, you can install a GSM device and receive SMS notifications when someone opens your gate, or there’s a power outage back GSM intercom fitted and answer your intercom from anywhere, giving the impression that you’re home. Below we’ve provided some additional security tips:

home. Or have a

• Have a friend or neighbour collect your mail
• Check your alarm system before embarking on your trip (a GSM device can also be configured to notify you of alarm events, and it enables you to switch your alarm on and off via SMS text messages from your phone)
• Put outside lights on a day-night switch and set it up so that the lights come on at night (or – you guessed it – just invest in a GSM device! You can also connect lights to your D5-Evo’s light relay and use the gate motor’s onboard timer to automatically switch them on and off. #IntelligenceInMotion)
• Inform your armed reaction company that you’ll be away from home for a while
• Ask someone to maintain your swimming pool while you’re away
• Lock valuables in a safe
• Check that doors, locks and windows are secure

10 Uses for Your GSM Module

We have officially declared August GSM month! Why? Because we can, and because we want to share with you some of the cool things that you can do with a GSM module, that you probably never even thought was possible! We’re generous like that.

Just in case there’s any doubt as to how absolutely, positively fantastic this technology is, let’s take a moment to reflect on the fact that all of the things mentioned in this article can be done using your phone! Yes, you heard that right, it turns out it’s good for more than playing Angry Birds on while pretending to be hard at work.

1.       Open your gate

Okay, we cheated a little with this first one since most of you probably knew that you can use a GSM module for this. But still, no more bulky remotes that can be lost or stolen you say? Count us in!

2.       Switch on a fridge

Fridges are notoriously heavy on electricity and, if it’s one that you only use occasionally – say, a fridge aboard your boat or in your “man cave” - it’s probably rather impractical (not to mention expensive) to keep the thing running year-round until it has run up a utility bill that looks like a teenager’s phone bill. So what do you do? Just hook that puppy up to a GSM module, missed call or SMS the unit an hour or two before the big game – and enjoy your ice cold brewskies right on cue. Now that’s a bro move.

3.       Arm an alarm

Allow us to posit the following bone-chilling scenario: You’re on your way to the dam armed with your rods and your cooler box, the sun has just started to creep over the horizon painting the sky in majestic shades of ochre. Today, you fish. And nothing is going to stop you. Suddenly you realise, much to your chagrin, that you forgot to arm the house alarm and there has been a spate of burglaries in your neighbourhood. Do you turn the car around and miss out on the opportunity to show the bass who’s boss (see what we did there?)? Not if you have a GSM module installed!

4.       Warm up your bed

It’s an icy July evening, you’re working late, and the only thing you want right now is to go home and get into bed with Volume III of A Game of Thrones. If only there was some way of switching your electric blanket on remotely and letting it warm up your bed (which is presently as cold as Dracula’s sarcophagus) while you’re driving home. Oh wait, that’s right, there is. GSM!

5.       Irrigation

The MyGSM onlineuser portal allows you to set up your module to perform automatic activations, for example activating your sprinkler system at 4 o’ clock every afternoon. Even when you forget, your GSM module won’t – this is automation working for you.

6.       Keep tabs

Up until this point we’ve mostly been focussing on our GSM products’ switching capabilities, but did you know that you can use them for monitoring as well? Receive SMS notifications on your phone when your alarm is activated, mains power has failed or even when someone is blocking the infrared gate safety beams in front of your gate!

7.       Time and attendance

If you have people working for you, whether it be a single domestic worker or you head up a slightly larger undertaking, CENTURION’s GSM modules and accompanying web interfaces allow you to keep tabs on when they report for work and when they knock off. Both G-WEB and MyGSM.co.za store transaction logs containing the date and time of the transaction, the access number used, the name of the person assigned to that number, and the output triggered. These can then be viewed at the administrator or employer’s leisure and used for tallying the hours worked, calculating salaries and overtime, etc.

8.       Control the aircon

“But Charl,” I hear you saying, “air conditioners have remotes! Why would you want to control them with your phone?” That’s a fair point, but what if you’re not in the physical vicinity of the aircon unit? Say, for example, that you’re the proprietor of a bed and breakfast and you’d like guests to be greeted by a nice, cool room upon arrival but you don’t necessarily have the time and resources to go to each and every room and switch on the aircon (or to switch it off once the ambient temperature has been sufficiently cooled down). Then, kemo sabe, you simply whip out your cell phone and issue the command, as it were.

9.       Lock down your entrance electronically

So the fishing trip you went on in point number 3 didn’t work out exactly as planned, and you ended up catching no more than a bad cold. You have now set your sites on going down to the coast, but that means leaving your home unattended for at least a week and you worry that your domestic staff, all of whom have remotes to your property, will use this opportunity to help themselves to your stuff. Well, you probably already know where this is going...

All CENTURION operators offer a unique little feature known as Holiday Lockout that, when activated, causes your gate motor to ignore inputs from all devices except the one that invoked it. Connect the GSM module to your gate motor’s Holiday Lockout input and ensure that “there ain’t no one gettin’ in ‘cept you”.

10.   Monitor fluid level

Whether you want to know when your Koi pond is full, or you’d like to be notified when a diesel generator needs refilling, you can’t go wrong with a GSM module acting as sentry. Since the module will notify you via text alert once the fluid reaches a certain level, there’s no need to check on it manually and thus you’ll have time for life’s more important things (read: fishing and watching rugby).

In what creative way have you used your GSM module? Let us know in the comments!