Federico Lucifredi wrote: > I recently ran into this > http://www.nutech.com/online-store/35.html > > it seems like an interesting concept: owners of those alarm systems > can tap into the movement sensor data, and use that from the home > automation framework to trigger actions based on room occupancy.
Yes, highly appealing to be able to tap into that sensor data and have that sensor investment do double duty. > ...I haven't heard of anyone who used this yet... The author of the AZIZ home automation project I mentioned here a few weeks back is using this or something equivalent to interface to an Ademco alarm panel. > I do wonder if this interferes with the system's nominal security > use, but I guess not. My interpretation of the description is that the device permits communication with the panel, which remains at the center of things with respect to alarm operation. Although this device is made by a third party, it is presumably using an API/interface provided by Ademco, and presumably they wouldn't provide that if it jeopardized their UL rating (a.k.a. reliability as an alarm device). I really hate the way the residential alarm industry works. It is generally very focused on serving dealers and not consumers. For example, the GE alarm panels I have include Z-Wave home automation control capability, but in order to use it you have to pay a monthly subscription fee to alarm.com (exclusive monopoly), which provides the web UI for configuring it. Dealers like it, because it is less work for them, and they get to make a monthly commission on the alarm.com subscription. There's really no good excuse for why all alarm panels don't come with an Ethernet jack, have a built-in web-based UI, plus support some open standard protocol for integration with home automation. It's great to see at least a few of the vendors in this space, like Ademco, providing APIs. With GE, if you don't want to pay the monthly fee to alarm.com (which still won't get you home integration with your own home automation system) you can "downgrade" to a 20-year old alarm panel design that is more commonly used in commercial installations and does provide an RS232 interface, or you can go with a high-end ($500+) home automation/security system (elkproducts.com) that basically replaces your GE panel but reuses your GE sensors. GE does make some wireless receiver boards intended to add wireless sensor capability to their hard-wired alarm panels. I've been tempted to buy a surplus one off eBay and try and reverse engineer the proprietary (of course) serial protocol it uses to communicate with the panel. But even if it worked, this is far less than ideal, as you'd then be substituting the home automation system for your alarm panel. Ideally what I want is more like how the Ademco interface is described, where the alarm panel operates independently of the home automation system, yet the home automation system has visibility into what's happen with the sensors, and the alarm panel itself. (So not only does it receive events when sensors are tripped, and can arms/disarm the panel, it can also query the current state of all sensors, and retrieve metadata about sensors, like if one is in a battery low state or has a communication failure.) If I was starting from scratch I'd definitely take these issues into consideration when choosing an alarm product line. (4 years ago when I was researching this, there was essentially no home automation integration options except with very high-end system or using antiquated hard-wired panels. So I chose a product line that was well reviewed and had a wide range of inexpensive sensors.) -Tom _______________________________________________ Hardwarehacking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking
