13-year-old invents thief-thwarting doorbell

He may not think up booby traps to thwart burglars like in the 1990s "Home Alone" movies, but a young boy in the United Kingdom has struck it rich by inventing something that does the job in a much neater way. Laurence Rook, 13, is also earning a fortune from his "Smart Bell," which fools burglars targeting an empty property into thinking that someone is at home. "Most opportunist burglars ring the doorbell first to see if anyone is at home, but Smart Bell has the perfect way to counteract this. If you are out and a burglar comes up to your door and rings the doorbell, after ten seconds Smart Bell will ring through to your mobile phone and you will be able to answer ... There is a small amount of white noise so it will sound like an intercom and the burglar will never know that you're not actually inside the house," Rook described his device in an interview with The Daily Mail. The Daily Mail report said that the invention is about to make Rook a rich schoolboy, about to earn 250,000 pounds (P17.667 million). It said Rook has already sold 20,000 units to telecoms giant Commtel Innovate and is finalizing a deal with an unnamed second company for another 25,000 units. Rook said he designed the idea first because his mother was fed up going to the Post Office to collect deliveries made when they were not at home. But as he was developing the Smart Bell, "I realized it could also be a great burglar-deterrent." He also had the idea for the Smart Bell after his school challenged pupils to come up with an invention for a Dragons' Den-style competition. Rook, who won a scholarship to attend private Trinity School in Croydon, South London, was initially unable to enter the contest because he had no working prototype. But his parents James and Margaret showed his plans to family friend Paula Ward, who was crowned the world's top female inventor in 2004 for designing a web chatroom safety system. "Paula thought it was brilliant and sent off the designs to China for it to be made into the actual product. I was gobsmacked that she thought it was so good," Rook said. In less than 12 months after the prototype was developed, Commtel Innovate is preparing for the wholesale release of the product and High Street giants B&Q, PC World, Currys and Comet are now set to stock the Smart Bell, which will cost £40, The Daily Mail reported. Next problem Rook said his next problem now is what to do with his windfall. "When I found out I was going to make a quarter of a million pounds, I thought, 'Wow, that's a lot of computer games,'" he said. "It's amazing having that amount of money, but I haven't told any of my school friends yet. I don't know what they'll think. I'm going to save most of the money – I want to go to university, so I'll need it for that," he added. For her part, Mrs. Rook, 39, an administrator who has two other sons, said she is "trying to keep Laurence grounded at the moment." — TJD, GMA News