Alarm Panel

[Ken LaCapria]

I'm looking at adding an alarm panel to the house. What alarm panel and plug in do you use? Pros and cons?

Ken

[nightwalker]

Using a DSC, 1832 (wired) here coupled with BLDSC plug-in. Haven't had a bit of trouble with either one of them.

[LeoS]

Using Ademco Vista (128BP) with Mark Sandler's Ademco Vista plugin. It has a feature that passesthrough signals from the wireless zones (and v-plex wired zones as well), so these zones become very responsive and suitable for automation trigger, without having to depend on zone faulting mechanism of the alarm panel.

[TeleFragger]

I have the concord 4 alarm panel and love it.. however in HS2 there was a free plugin (not fully developed as Piperpilot is a busy man).. but so far nothing for HS3 so not sure at this time if I would recommend a plugin...

[tenholde]

ELK with the UltraM1G plugin.

ELK will cost more, but if you can afford it, do it.

tenholde

[TeleFragger]

ELK with the UltraM1G plugin.

ELK will cost more, but if you can afford it, do it.

tenholde

i have always said if I was to build a house i would go that route... but now im starting to think this would be good to look into if all of my rf sensors would work.. would keep it a bit cheaper...
hmmm

[Rupp]

I would recommend the DSC security system and take the money saved and invest in more automation goodies.

[Pete]

Here I have automated with both HS and the HAI OPII panel for over 10 years now.

The two pieces complement each other. The security pieces stay with the panel mostly. I do have same similiar hardware connected to each relating to audio, lighting, touchscreens et al.

Doing this has allowed me to utilize Homeseer for complex tasks relating to automation and leaving the basics on either or just one of the two.

Right now basic lighting schedules and some basic scripting of events are on the panel for example.

Other more complex multiple pieces of IO hardware, multiple event lighting stuff is on the Homeseer software and I play with various speech fonts (for a long time now).

That said though historically I had a hardware embedded security panel in the 1980's that was security, light control (via X10) and had speech. I was in fact still using the panel in the late 1990's when I first purchased Homeseer and had then two voices talking in the house plus whatever Homeseer was doing at the time.

Thinking back now I wanted to remote control my home from wherever back then and did do so in the early 2000's while traveling much internationally or at work at the time. Then again though I could and tested dial up remote control of a an automotive assembly line in the 90's using a simple modem connection to this and that for work stuff (mostly though just watching stuff).

I will sit and stare at dynamic graphs getting memerized by what I see with the Homeseer software and touchscreens.

I do different stuff though with the Homeseer software such that I do utilize some 16 plus serial connections and some over 5 USB connections and lately some 15 touchscreens doing this or that. I push it a bit though trying to break it...but that is me....

I do now have two HS 2 boxes running and one separate HS 3 box and have replicated the base hardware IO to each box such that each one works independant of the other one.

I do also have two HAI OPII panels; one lite loaded and one heavy loaded if that makes sense?

[NeverDie]

I'm looking at adding an alarm panel to the house. What alarm panel and plug in do you use? Pros and cons?

Ken

How much "stuff" (keypads, active sensors, wireless modem, etc.) will you be hanging off it? It's all typically remote powered from your panel. I started with a Vista-20P, and later added more stuff, but the Vista-20P didn't have enough electrical power to run it all. A professional alarm installer decided the "solution" was to augment the Vista-20P with additional power and battery. However, his extra power converter runs very hot (about 170F), and I've been worried about it ever since as a possible fire hazard. I never thought alarm stuff would consume enough power to worry about, but apparently it does. 20/20 hindsight.

I need to upgrade, but I don't want to dump all my "stuff," whose dollar value at this point is higher than the panel. It's all that stuff that locks you into a vendor. I haven't had the time to look into it, though I really need to. Does the Vista-128BP, or one of the other Vista's, come with lots more native power? Either that, or I'll need to find a higher capacity, cooler running power supply so that I can sleep at night.

Meanwhile, the ultimate irony is that if the alarm installer's power supply were to further overheat and start a fire, most likely the alarm panel would quickly die from lack of adequate power and before it could sense a fire existed or report it to the monitoring company.

[Automated]

ELK with the UltraM1G plugin.

ELK will cost more, but if you can afford it, do it.

tenholde

This is what I have. No complaints. I understand that one can have a similarly rich setup with the HAI route as well.

[norcoscia]

Using DSC with EnvisaLink plug-in

Works great and no serial headaches since it is an IP connection to HS. For some users serial is not a problem but for me (and my house) serial was a pain since I needed to convert to IP anyway to reach my HS CPU.

Elk is definitely a much nicer system design (IMHO) but the cost is so, so much more - DSC does everything I need and most of the DCS security sensors do double duty providing info to HS (for functions beyond security).

Be warned -- configuring a security system does required some work, just letting you know in case you have not messed with setting up a security system before.

[untapi]

elk with the ultram1g plugin.

Elk will cost more, but if you can afford it, do it.

Tenholde

+1

[jabrans]

Alarm Panel

I have an Elk M1G connected to HS via serial using the UltraM1G plug-in. I don't have the Elk controlling lighting, HS does all that since I'm mostly Insteon I didn't want to spend even more $$ to get the Elk controlling Insteon. That said it's to trigger a lights on event in HS when the Elk goes into entry delay. I do have a few tasks running in the Elk. If the inside garage door is left open for more than 3 minutes the Elk reminds us to close the door every 30 seconds until its closed. If the garage are left open past a certain time the Elk will close them. All my sensors are hard wired and I've added a 16 in expander and the 8 relay output board. I like the fact that the Elk speaks in plain English what is going on with the system. I use an output to trigger polarity reversing relay for the smoke detectors so all the detectors sounders go off if there's a fire alarm. I use it for my kids' timeout timer which HS updates the duration of every month on the day of their birthday.