Joshua Schaffer and Shantera Brown a tech-savvy couple, recently proved that 21st century surveillance tools — deployed and monitored wisely — can and do thwart criminals.

The couple just arrived in Hawaii two days before Thanksgiving — and were having a relaxing dinner in the tropical paradise, when they received a notification via a cell phone app, that there was trouble at their town-home.

The app enabled them to immediately check the views of their residence provided by multiple, motion-sensitive surveillance cameras mounted back home. The images provided by the cameras raised red flags — two of the cameras showed nothing at all, because they were apparently covered by the intruders.