We founded HouseSetter in 2012 with the idea of doing something disruptively important in home monitoring – to focus on the unique needs of second home owners and create the simplest, lowest cost way to keep an eye on their places while they were away. What we saw was that there are many choices in home monitoring but they’re almost exclusively focused on primary residences, with no real options focused on second homes. They’re typically designed for a broad range of things, from exterior surveillance to door and motion sensors, to home automation (controlling lights and thermostats) to live monitoring. Many rely on an existing Wi-Fi connection ($30-50/mo), involve expensive hardware and complicated installations, and often require long term service contracts. Those are all fine if you need them, but for many second home owners it’s more in some ways and less in others than they really need.

What if you started by focusing on the critical risks that an unoccupied home sitting vacant for weeks or months at a time has – like undetected broken pipes flooding the property, or air conditioner or furnace failures causing the catastrophic and hazardous growth of black mold, or the structural damage caused by frozen plumbing. And what about power failures? Sump pumps don’t work, electronic timers don’t reset correctly, freezers defrost, and if you were relying on Wi-Fi guess what – you’re out of business. Then there’s that special image you have of your home – your cozy living room, or that view through the kitchen window out onto the porch. You know what it’s supposed to look like when everything is fine, but how’s it doing when you’re hundreds or thousands of miles away?

So what else would be important if you were specializing home monitoring for second homes? You’d want to eliminate the cost and hassle of paying $30-50/mo for an internet connection when you’re not there (something that’s also absolutely useless during a power outage) and replace it with something that has integrated cellular connectivity. You’d want the system to be incredibly easy to install and use (completely hassle free) and very flexible (no long term contracts). And finally you’d want it to be extremely affordable – a real easy decision.

Enter Sherlock, a house sitter (that we call HouseSetter since Sherlock’s a dog) that’s been specifically designed to be the perfect companion for your second home. He faithfully monitors temperature, humidity and can sense and report on power outages. He’s always on duty, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and has a backup battery that lets him function for days without power. He’ll send you alerts anytime he detects a problem, and even if there isn’t a problem he’ll send a weekly email just to let you know that everything is fine. He’s smart enough to send you a picture of that special place in your home, and you can even check in anytime you’d like – just ask him for an OnDemand report. Installing Sherlock is easy, you just take him out of his box and plug him in and within a minute he’ll send you an email that lets you know he’s on duty. Sherlock’s amazingly inexpensive at $120, and with service as low as $5/month (no Wi-Fi necessary), he’s the most cost-effective house sitter on the planet.

We thought this was possible and important to do because we’ve done something like this before. The team that’s behind HouseSetter actually brings over 50 years of experience in launching and delivering OnStar’s lifesaving services to millions of subscribers. Instead of your car, we’ve substituted your second home. And instead of responding to crashes, we’re helping you respond to small problems before they become really big ones. And while there are differences, what’s the same is our strong commitment to deliver important peace of mind in a surprisingly simple and extremely affordable way.

Thanks for considering Sherlock as your house sitter.