HomeSeer as your alarm system?

[msbreton]

Is anyone using HomeSeer as their alarm system?

For example, one could use:
Z-Wave door window sensors
Z-Wave motion sensors
Z-Wave sirens

Why have a dedicated alarm panel?

Let the debate begin!

-Mike

[TechHA]

Something I've been thinking a lot about lately. I don't need or want a 'real' full blown security system. But I miss the HS2/X10 days using BLSecurity.

Would love to have the control/options of a dedicated panel using HomeSeer and the z-wave modules I already have installed.

Many will argue that this could NEVER replace a 'real' system and I agree...but I don't want another system. Just want more control on how my devices work together and notify me of certain conditions.

[nsisman]

I still use Homeseer as an alarm system especially the X10 stuff for 20 years now.

X10 motion sensors on the visors in my vehicles.(and in my green box and on my mouse traps).

DS10's on all house doors, gates and my garden shed.

Never had a break-in but I would certainly know about it in the house.

No match for a gun but a 6 iron to the kneecap would slow a thief down I'm sure

A dedicated system would be tricky here as my kids and grandkids are in and out of here all the time so Homeseer is a great filler system for us.

[rmasonjr]

I've integrated my HAI alarm panel with HS3 with a plugin I wrote and couldnt be happier. The panel will continue to function standalone if HS goes down. The only thing I would miss are text/email notifications that HS provides.

No, I dont think I would rely solely on HS to handle security, but having 2 systems does have a level of redundancy that gives me a little more peace of mind.

[mikedr]

The thing that keeps me from doing something like this is the lack of central monitoring, which I believe is important. If the house catches fire, for instance, and HS3 sends me a text and I happen to be on an airplane, well, I'm not going to get it in a timely manner.

I'm a bit surprised that the Homeseer folks haven't partnered with an alarmrelay.com type outfit (or nextalarm.com) to offer central monitoring for HS3 setups. I imagine that there would have to be a built-in "stay," "away," and "disarmed" functionality, but that seems fairly trivial.

You would then for any Z-Wave device be able to specify if it is an alarm device, and if so, whether if if should trigger an alarm in just away mode or both stay and away mode. Triggering the alarm would then contact the central monitoring place via IP.

Definitely do-able. Would be a pretty good revenue stream for Homeseer, too -- I imagine that they would get $1-2/month for every subscriber.

[TomTom]

HomeSeer as your alarm system?

I'm doing this right now. I'll create post/blog of what I've done soon.

I went back and forth a lot on this for several years since HS2. For me hs2 was never stable enough , but that may be just me. HS3 has been incredibly stable.



So i decided a few weeks ago to go all z wave for security. Here were my reasons I posted in another post:



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(zigbee/zwave), ATT Digital Life(security zwave), Comcast Xfinity Home Security( zigbee/z-wave) 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(very remote)



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. The local municipality here 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.



Alerts- pushover messages are pretty instant. Burglar and fire alerts go to three different people( me, wife and relative). Extra fire alert goes out to close neighbor.



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), plugin cost, changes to security system( expansion requiring alarm specialist) traditional security can 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.

[Padre]

I have a built in security system and use my HomeSeer to monitor it and act in certain instances. My only concern with an all z-wave setup would be battery life of wireless sensors. I do not know but what happens with a sensor when this happens? I would think at the least it would defeat a part of the z-wave security system.

My home had the alarm installed when built, I may have gone the z-wave if this house did not have a system installed. I have just switched from an older x-10 system and am loving the versatility of the new HomeSeer.

[kideon]

how do you integrate alarm relay?

[kriz83]

I use completely separate systems.
Imagine your HS server fails, you won't be able to use your alarm...

My alarm system has relay outputs which can be programmed. I read those with the RPI to know what the actual state of the alarm is. To change the status of the alarm, I opened up the optional remote and attached that to the RPI as well.

[macromark]

We recommend against using HomeSeer or any home automation system as your primary security system. There's too much at stake! Instead, install a HomeSeer compatible alarm panel and integrate that with your HomeSeer system.

[mikedr]

FWIW, once our alarm contract is over, I'm going to migrate everything to a DSC system. The idea is to have a very simple monitoring contract just for "true" alarm events, and then have hS3 talk to the system for everything else.

[AshaiRey]

I'm a bit surprised that the Homeseer folks haven't partnered with an alarmrelay.com type outfit (or nextalarm.com) to offer central monitoring for HS3 setups.

Maybe because they are thinking global. It may be a shock to you but the world is larger then the US.

[reidfo]

I'm a bit surprised that the Homeseer folks haven't partnered with an alarmrelay.com type outfit (or nextalarm.com) to offer central monitoring for HS3 setups. I imagine that there would have to be a built-in "stay," "away," and "disarmed" functionality, but that seems fairly trivial.

As Mark said,

We recommend against using HomeSeer or any home automation system as your primary security system.

HST doesn't recommend using HS as a security system, so it wouldn't make sense to form partnerships with alarm monitoring companies.

[Pete]

Here too utilize the Leviton HAI OmniPro 2 combination panels for alarm / security utilizing CS monitoring and Rob's HAI Plugin. Its life and saftey UL approved functions are autonomous of the plugin.

You can install the RPi2 / HS3 HAI Plugin inside of the alarm panel and have it powered by the alarm panel with the battery backup and resilience to the ISP connection for email reports. That said the CS/monitoring connectivity via telco (either with copper or cellular) is not replaced in this way. Not sure though on the power draw relating to the RPi2 with only one power supply connected to the OmniPro 2 panel.

Here playing with a microrouter (2"X2") with two network ports and one serial port that works by taking the network port to a layer 3 connection. Its function is transparent to the HAI NIC interface allowing Omnitouch screens, CCTV cameras, PCA and Rob's plugin to function. It is powered by the OmniPro panel today. It is not recommended to utilize the wireless functions on the microuter (no external antenna) for network dependencies and the power draw is much higher. I have added an RTC with battery and one temperature sensor to the micro router. It is only running at 400Mhz with little flash / RAM on it with limited functions utilizing OpenWRT LUA / LuCi web gui. It is not meant to be a programming interface rather just a very light innocuous secondary network interface to all of the rest of the network interfaces.

Fire, Police, Smoke alarms while reporting to HS report directly to the CS from the panel.

The central services monitoring has evolved much over the last few years where false alarms which call police or fire are charged to the home-owner these days.

[Gogs]

Now this all sounds pretty interesting, however, the usual question.

It's sold by Amazon US is it available and will it work in the EU, specifically UK.

I notice one of the post stated it was not working because of a dialect problem, what's it going to make of a British accent, especially if it's regional!

And I will not mention Trump, oop's I just did.