vacationer
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RAL-RAL said:If the battery you have is more than 3 years old, it is at the end of its life and should be replaced with a new battery. In any case, the battery should be sized to the power demands of your new system, so it can provide 4 hours or more of backup run time.
If you want to do a direct replacement and keep your zone configuration the same as what you have now with 8 zones, you don't need a zone expander. So the main Vista 20P board can handle that.
If you want to add wireless to the Vista 20P, you can do that with a 6160RF keypad, or with a 5881ENH receiver.
By comparison, the Elk M1 Gold has 16 zones on the base panel, giving you some extra room to grow before any zone expanders are needed. Where the Vista 20P has no output relays or voltage outputs on the base panel, the M1G has 1 relay and 10 voltage outputs that can be used for home automation purposes on the base panel.
Elk offers 3 wireless options for the M1G. You can add receivers for Honeywell, GE/Interlogix, or Elk's own proprietary wireless sensors.
A starter configuration for the Elk, say with 2 keypads and an M1XEP ethernet interface, will cost you about $500 more than a basic Vista 20P with 2 keypads and an EnvisaLink board.
Wow! Thanks for such and informative post as well. I really really appreciate all the assistance you all are giving me on this subject. I am certainly here to learn.
So you are saying about $500 "more" for the Elk versus the Vista but that includes 16 zones standard for Elk whereas I would have to buy expander for Vista adding to the price a little too. And the Vista does do some HA but just not as "extensive" as the Elk? Not as flexible or the amount of options I guess...?
So what would be a ballpark figure for the Elk, 2 keypads, Ethernet interface (for remote / away from home control, wireless board (to add more window sensors for second floor) versus the same for the Vista (which will have to include the expander if I want to do more zones)? $800 for the Elk and $400 for the Vista roughly?
One of the big questions I am going to have is this: how "compatible" would you say this Elk would be in allowing me to use my existing hardware and how difficult would it be for me to program especially since I am a novice (newb)...although I am in the IT field but not a software engineer by any stretch of the imagination (more network admin then anything).
Thanks again for your continued support along the way!!