brand suggestion

[bancroft65]

what do you suggest for a security system?

i was thinking honeywell but not sure

[Rupp]

If you are self installing the DSC system is a very good affordable system and there are two different plugins to choose from to interface to HS3.

[sparkman]

You can use the IT-100 interface to connect the DSC and that is supported by HST's plugin and Blade's BLDSC plugin. You can also use an EnvisaLink interface and that is supported by spud's EnvisaLink plugin. There are also plugins for other brands/types of alarm panels. What functions do you want from your alarm panel?

Cheers
Al

[tenholde]

If you can afford it, I think ELK M1G is the best bet.

tenholde

[Rupp]

HomeSeer sells the DSC line and it's available here:
http://store.homeseer.com/store/Secu...tems-C236.aspx

Very good system and very affordable.

[mikedr]

FWIW, our security system (GE Concord through Alarm.com) is finally going off contract, and I'm going to be replacing it with a DSC system. My reasons are two-fold. First, there are multiple ways of interfacing it to HS3, although I'm leaning towards Envisalink. Second, all of the alarm monitoring companies seem to support it. Right now I'm assessing whether to do cellular alarm connectivity or Internet (I just upgraded our router to have failover to LTE, so I'm leaning in that direction).

For alarm.com, I'm paying $45-50 a month for the interactive service, primarily to get emails and texts when certain things occur (non-alarm events). The idea is to push all non-alarm stuff over to HS3, and have the alarm contract be very basic -- central monitoring only. Further, I'd be able to set and disarm the alarm remotely through HS3Touch. I'm thinking I can get the cost down to $10-15 a month easy by just having central monitoring of the alarm proper in this way.

[amp3d]

HomeSeer sells the DSC line and it's available here:
http://store.homeseer.com/store/Secu...tems-C236.aspx

Very good system and very affordable.

I'm sortof in the same boat now that I've moved to a new house. I'm looking to install a security system and it would be great to tie it into the zwave.

When I check the PDF in the download section of the HS plugin, it says "A DSC Security Panel, either MAXSYS or Power864 Series must be installed in your home".

That's a bit confusing as it doesn't really clearly say which other panels are supported.

I'm assuming all power series is supported?

[sparkman]

I'm assuming all power series is supported?

Correct.

Cheers
Al

[TomTom]

I've always been a Ademco/Honeywell user due the large amount of user information out there and relatively inexpensive parts on ebay. It is also flexible -Expansion and or changes are quite easy due to the availability of expert knowledge base and parts.

Now- My new venture is different. I have a second home several states away that I need to get home automation and security to quickly. So I started down the path of honeywell again, but realized that there are enough z-wave related devices to serve all the needs of security. Z-wave door contacts for perimeter monitoring, door locks, sirens, z-wave motion all rooms indoors, z-wave glass breakage detectors, flood sensors, panic button, keyfob remotes, water shutoff, etc. Lowes Iris system and some others are already in this space- offering zigbee and z-wave panic buttons, keypads, and other devices to virtually replace security panels.

The other part of my goal was to keep it simple and have very tight integration with HS and limit various inter dependencies that can potentially lead to issues and/of failure - envisalink, adt2usb, alarm panel plugin, alarm panel itself.

Monitoring - in my state they call the home owner first before they call any fire/police. With cost of false alarms going higher and stricter, more responsibility is placed on the home owner to confirm alarms.
Many local municipalities are charging for false alarms. A local municipality only gives 2 false fire alarms per address(not per year), anything beyond that is $200/false alarm. So even with Ademco/Honeywell for the last few years, I've been monitoring my own security - the alerts come to me first.
I've got cameras in the house to confirm the issue if one comes up.
Cheapest monitoring I've used is alarmrelay.com $9/mo-$12/mo. So it ranges from $9-40/mo. So that will be a yearly saving of say $100-$400, depending on service.

Pricing - going z-wave works out to be the same if not cheaper than traditional security equipment due to the large number of z-wave manufactures out there. Then when you add in the cost of traditional security integration device(envisalink/adt2usb), and plugin cost - traditional security end up higher. Also alarm monitoring can charge extra for the number of smoke detectors monitored, flood detection, and/or getting ip alerts/text.

Lastly - on this second home I'm starting from scratch. There is no pre-existing system, so its just easier to go all z-wave.

I wasn't sure about going down this path at first, but I've started installing and testing various parts of it and they work equal too if not better than( easy integration, time, fast expansion) traditional wireless home security.
I'll post back with updates when have more to report.

[amp3d]

I've always been a Ademco/Honeywell user due the large amount of user information out there and relatively inexpensive parts on ebay. It is also flexible -Expansion and or changes are quite easy due to the availability of expert knowledge base and parts.

Now- My new venture is different. I have a second home several states away that I need to get home automation and security to quickly. So I started down the path of honeywell again, but realized that there are enough z-wave related devices to serve all the needs of security. Z-wave door contacts for perimeter monitoring, door locks, sirens, z-wave motion all rooms indoors, z-wave glass breakage detectors, flood sensors, panic button, keyfob remotes, water shutoff, etc. Lowes Iris system and some others are already in this space- offering zigbee and z-wave panic buttons, keypads, and other devices to virtually replace security panels.

The other part of my goal was to keep it simple and have very tight integration with HS and limit various inter dependencies that can potentially lead to issues and/of failure - envisalink, adt2usb, alarm panel plugin, alarm panel itself.

Monitoring - in my state they call the home owner first before they call any fire/police. With cost of false alarms going higher and stricter, more responsibility is placed on the home owner to confirm alarms.
Many local municipalities are charging for false alarms. A local municipality only gives 2 false fire alarms per address(not per year), anything beyond that is $200/false alarm. So even with Ademco/Honeywell for the last few years, I've been monitoring my own security - the alerts come to me first.
I've got cameras in the house to confirm the issue if one comes up.
Cheapest monitoring I've used is alarmrelay.com $9/mo-$12/mo. So it ranges from $9-40/mo. So that will be a yearly saving of say $100-$400, depending on service.

Pricing - going z-wave works out to be the same if not cheaper than traditional security equipment due to the large number of z-wave manufactures out there. Then when you add in the cost of traditional security integration device(envisalink/adt2usb), and plugin cost - traditional security end up higher. Also alarm monitoring can charge extra for the number of smoke detectors monitored, flood detection, and/or getting ip alerts/text.

Lastly - on this second home I'm starting from scratch. There is no pre-existing system, so its just easier to go all z-wave.

I wasn't sure about going down this path at first, but I've started installing and testing various parts of it and they work equal too if not better than( easy integration, time, fast expansion) traditional wireless home security.
I'll post back with updates when have more to report.

These are all great points, I'll continue to look into these things and try to work out the most efficient way of doing things.

I guess with a traditional alarm system though, I don't need to rely on my zwave network. I was previously a Vera user, and am just learning this HS stuff now. I pick up the HS zwave USB later today actually
What sort of zwave keypad would you use for arming/disarming your alarm system in a traditional fashion? I haven't even seen those?