Yes, and done properly it is identical to a test in a professional suite. The honest answer has a second half, though: it is only identical when the conditions are right. This page explains what actually matters, what does not, and why we refuse to take your money until three questions about your home have been answered.
A polygraph records small physiological changes: cardiovascular activity, breathing, and the electrical conductance of the skin, while questions are asked in a precise, rehearsed structure. The instrument is not fooled by nerves, but it can be polluted by interruption. A doorbell mid-question, a child bursting in, a partner listening at the door: each one contaminates the very signals the examiner is scoring, and unlike nerves, they cannot be controlled for.
That is the entire science of the venue. The examination does not care whether it is conducted in a business park or beside your own kettle. It cares that the room is quiet, that the examinee is undisturbed, and that nobody else can hear what is being asked. An office guarantees those things by construction. A home can guarantee them by arrangement, and arranging them is what our screening is for.
Somewhere the examination can run for around ninety minutes undisturbed. A kitchen or dining table is ideal. Grand is irrelevant; quiet is everything.
Only the examinee and the examiner in the room, and nobody elsewhere in the property close enough to overhear. The questions are private and the examinee’s attention must be whole.
For a couple of hours. Not because we mind them, but because the recording minds them: a barking dog registers on the charts more clearly than most lies.
You confirm all three during booking, before any payment is taken, and the examiner verifies them on the doorstep. If they were misrepresented, the appointment is cancelled without refund and we will offer a discounted office booking instead. That policy sounds stern until you realise what it protects: your own result.
Whether it is a flat or a house
The postcode or the size of the room
A sofa instead of an office chair, provided there is a table
Nerves: scoring compares responses, it does not measure calm
Search for home lie detector tests and you will meet two very different things wearing one name. There are USB kits, phone apps and party toys that claim to read truth for the price of a takeaway, and on these the sceptics are entirely right: a single sensor with no trained examiner, no validated question technique and no quality-assured scoring is not a polygraph, whatever the box says.
A professional home visit is the other thing: the same computerised instrumentation used in our offices, operated by an examiner trained to police interview standards, working to American Polygraph Association standards, with the charts released alongside your report. The venue travelled; nothing else changed.
Read the articles arguing against home tests and notice who publishes them: companies with premises to fill. Their warning contains a truth, because an unscreened home visit, booked over the phone with no questions asked about the room, genuinely does put the result at risk. We would not conduct one either.
The answer to a risk you can control is to control it, not to abandon the venue. We are, to our knowledge, the only UK home polygraph service that makes the conditions a contractual part of the booking, checked twice: once by you, before you can pay, and once by the examiner, before a single question is asked.
Yes. The instrumentation is portable, the techniques are identical, and the American Polygraph Association standards we work to say nothing about postcode. What they demand is a controlled environment: quiet, private and uninterrupted. A home that provides those three things is as valid a testing venue as any office suite, which is why we screen for them before taking payment.
Two reasons. First, some are talking about consumer gadgets, USB kits and phone apps, and they are right: those are toys, not polygraphs. Second, some run office premises and would rather sell the office visit. An unscreened home test genuinely is a risk. A screened one, conducted on professional instrumentation by a qualified examiner, is not.
Three things. A private room where the examination can run undisturbed, with a table and two chairs. Nobody else in the property within earshot for the duration. And pets or children arranged elsewhere for a couple of hours. You confirm all three when you book, and the examiner verifies them on arrival.
If the conditions you confirmed turn out not to be met, the appointment is cancelled and the fee is not refunded, because the visit was made in good faith on your word. We will offer a discounted booking at one of our offices instead. This is why we ask you to read the three conditions carefully rather than click through them.
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