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    Some basic questions...

    Disclaimer first: I've been out of the HS scene for a couple of years, but am about to get back into it with some z-Wave control and hopefully alarm integration in a new house I'm about to move into.

    I've been looking all over the web at panels that have X10 &/or Z-Wave capability. For my price point, it's probably down to the Elk M1 or the DSC, with the latter being a lot cheaper. Unfortunately, the installer doesn't have experience of either of these brands, so I need to ask the opinion of the real experts, you guys :-)

    Ideally, here's the basics I'd want from the plug-in:

    - User identification - each user has their own PIN code to disarm/arm, so HS knows who's in the house and can trigger various events based on that (i.e. for my girlfriend turn on ALL the lights and crank the heat up 10 degrees :-) )

    - Event notification - either via phone or email of an alarm event

    - Notification of when the home phone rings

    I guess that's it; I'm sure there's more, but it's late and I'm done surfing for the night! Can this plug in do all of the above?

    Thanks, Pete

    #2
    neither dsc (HST or CactsBob's) will support the phone awareness you're looking for. the dsc panel does have phone integration (or at least, the older models did, i'm not sure about the newer ones), but the plugins have not been developed (maybe because it simply can't be done, not sure) to that point.

    You can gain phone awareness w/ HSphone though, in which case everything else on your list could be done with dsc.

    I have cactsBob's plugin, and it works for me, but if i were starting from the scratch, i'd go with the HST dsc plugin, simply because they are still working on it, where as cactsbob gave up on his quite some time ago.
    Plugins:
    BLLogMonitor, BLGarbage, BLBackup, BLOutGoingCalls, BLUps, BLRfid, JvEss, DooMotion, Applied Digital Ocelot, AC RF Processor, UltraMon, PJC AVR 430, UPB, Rain8net, DSC Panel, JRiver Media center, Windows Media Player, SageMediaCenter, SnevlCID, MCSTemperature.

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      #3
      I have the ElkM1 - a recent upgrade - and I am very impressed with it - the expandability and the software (both their's and UltraJones's HS plugin) are really good. Everything you mention above with the exception of phone notification is possible/easy on the Elk.

      Also, if you haven't already invested in your Z-Wave stuff, I really recommend you look at the ISY interface for Insteon - again this has great software and a HS plugin thats almost ready - the Elk and the ISY between them take care of most of my HA needs with Homeseer integrating it all together.

      Jon

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        #4
        I have no expeirence with cactus bob's plugin (and I believe it's been discontinued since he disappeared), but I have been using the HS Plugin and I can answer your questions based on that.

        - User identification - each user has their own PIN code to disarm/arm, so HS knows who's in the house and can trigger various events based on that (i.e. for my girlfriend turn on ALL the lights and crank the heat up 10 degrees :-) )
        You can do this. It's a little tricky to set up the event for this and there wasn't really any documentation, but I figured out how to do it. I posted a message on the HS DSC Plugin section about exactly how to do this. If you can't find it, let me know and I'll find it again.

        - Event notification - either via phone or email of an alarm event
        You can have an alarrm event trigger a homeseer event. And, of course, you can do almost anything with a homeseer event, so phone or email notification is no problem.

        - Notification of when the home phone rings
        I'm not quite sure about this one, but I believe you can probably get something to work. This has never been something I care about, but I did notice that every time the phone rings the plugin writes an event to the event log that says something like "The phone is ringing". There is no caller ID information and I don't know if you can use that to trigger an event directly, but I believe that there is a plugin you can use that can trigger an event based on something appearing in the log, so you should be able to do what you want somehow, but it might take a little effort.

        Additionally, there are a few other plugins that use modems or other third party devices to not only identify when the phone is ringing, but also capture the caller ID data. IMHO if you really want to know when the phone is ringing it would probably also be much more useful to get the caller ID info too.

        Also, as long as I'm posting, I went through a similar decision process a year or two ago. I moved into a new house that already had a DSC alarm panel. I had heard about the Elk panels and I was impressed, but I really didn't want to spend that much money. After quite a bit of consideration I decided to just use the DSC panel with homeseer and I really don't regret it. I think that there's very little (if anything) that the Elk panel can do alone that I can't do with the combination of HS and the DSC panel.

        HTH,
        Brett

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          #5
          Thanks!

          Thanks for all the replies.

          The phone thing isn't too important to me, the most important is probably the user ID via PIN code, since that can trigger a whole bunch of events. I'm no scripter, so hopefully it's not too tricky. I'll take a look at the ISY interface, but I suspect cost will drive me towards the DSC. The Elk M! looks great, but I suspect I'd not even touch 80% of the functionality. I know I'll probably regret making that comment, but as it's the best part of $400-500 more, it's tough to justify right now.

          As I have you experts here, can I just confirm the basics I'd need for the DSC solution:

          - Power864 Panel (or just Power832?)
          - ESCORT™5580 module
          - IT-100 interface

          The PIRs and other bits are already in the house, I probably need to decide on a keypad as well (recommendations are welcome)

          In terms of connectivity, I just need to run a serial from the IT-100 to the com port (probably thru a USB) dongle, correct?

          Thanks for all your help guys (Brett, I just found your posting on the user IDs, doesn't look *too* complicated :-)

          Pete
          Last edited by ; March 15, 2009, 10:20 AM. Reason: Added more info

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