Guardian by Dowco - Integrated Cover Alarm System - 130 Extreme/High Decibel - Theft Deterrent - Battery Operated - Black - 2 Year Limited Warranty [ 26038-00 ]

Total and utter garbage!

nice buy, very loud, pin easy pulls out to activate alarm if stealing cover, nice buy

So simple, yet so effective. This alarm takes one 9V battery and is purely a "switch" in that removal of the pin makes noise. And it is very loud. Not like a police car, absolutely not, those are meant to work at very long distances. And maybe a little more quiet than a car alarm as well, but the noise is in proportion to what one would need for protecting a motorcycle and definitely extremely loud for its size and startling. Much more than adequate!Because it is so simple, there is no timing settings, no remote and nothing but the pull pin and a test switch on the side that may be used to "test" that the battery is OK for a brief moment. It simply acts as if the pin was removed when the switch is in the on position. And in the off position the alarm is "armed" and ready to trigger when the pin is removed.If the alarm is triggered the only way to deactivate it is by reinserting the pin, removal of the battery or destruction.The pin requires a little force to remove, so you could dangle the box by the string and it won't simply fall off. The amount of resistance is perfect.The nylon cord seems durable and unlikely to fray and the box has a belt clip that facilitates temporarily mounting it to something.In my application I have the box clamped between my motorcycle's side kickstand and the bottom of the frame, since I usually park it using the center kick stand. Then, once I put the cover on, I attach the clip to the edge of the cover. There have been a couple of times that I removed the cover without remembering to un-clip the alarm and I activated it by accident. This shows that the alarm will work despite my somewhat simplistic method.

I bought this 6 months ago after my bike had been messed with a few times (saddle bags stolen, side panels removed). I live in an apartment and park the bike in a spot behind the building. Last night, the alarm went off in the middle of the night and it was both loud enough to wake me up (I'm a very heavy sleeper) and scare off whoever was trying to take the cover off. I just hope I didn't wake up any neighbors.My only complaint is that as far as I can tell, the alarm will sound indefinitely until you put the pin back in or remove the battery (which requires a screwdriver). If I had been out of town, it would've kept the whole neighborhood up until someone figured out how to turn it off. I'll probably need to remove it from the bike every time I leave town, since I'd rather have something stolen from the bike than my neighbors hate me.

Great product