kemperflow
New Member
I have plenty old servers around (dual power supply, Raid 5 disks, etc) plus good battery backup. I can also do some .NET coding, serial port reading writing, etc.. I also have a handful of X10 devices and control panels from two houses ago. I have a pretty beefy computer network at the house that can even use a Sprint wireless card as backup. That being said.
The need:
I am looking to have cameras all around the house, an alarm system with 2-3 control pads and around 8-16 zones, and some home automation would be a bonus. I would like to access all of it from the internet.
I installed an Ademco Vista 20 at my old house for security only. It was pretty straightforward, but I soon realized that almost none of these commercial alarm systems had any kind of good internet access. They had ethernet or phone line connections for notifying alarm monitoring companies, etc, but nothing that was a send an email, and then allow me to browse the house and see what zones were violated, etc.
I looked at the Indigo home automation platform for the Mac (don't have a Mac, but would buy one just for this cool interface with the iPhone), but it doesn't appear to have any security attributes to speak of.
From the CCTV standpoint, I found some cool DVR boxes from Lorex, they also sell cards that I could put into my PC. It appears Avermedia and some other PC platforms are pretty good.
The home automation side is all over the place, I didn't find solid PC-based home automation systems that could also handle security well (preferrably something that you could program from the PC, monitor from the PC, but I didn't know what you would use for keypads, etc.
All that being said, any recommendations? I am leaning towards the Elk M1 Gold, along with either a DVR based camera system or a PC based camera system. My budget is flexible, and I may buy pieces over time, but I would like to stay around $1K (another $500 wouldn't kill me, but another $2K would make my wife kill me).
Are there any good combos for the Elk and a camera system? Are there any software based solutions I should look at?
As a last side note, I do have a pool that uses Jandy equipment, and it appears I can buy some stupid expensive converter box that would allow me to communicate with the pool equipment using serial connections. Oh, and I hate proprietary communication methods as a fyi. Linux vs Windows doesn't matter to me.
Broad enough? Thanks for reading this far. I will share my final system once I pick it.
The need:
I am looking to have cameras all around the house, an alarm system with 2-3 control pads and around 8-16 zones, and some home automation would be a bonus. I would like to access all of it from the internet.
I installed an Ademco Vista 20 at my old house for security only. It was pretty straightforward, but I soon realized that almost none of these commercial alarm systems had any kind of good internet access. They had ethernet or phone line connections for notifying alarm monitoring companies, etc, but nothing that was a send an email, and then allow me to browse the house and see what zones were violated, etc.
I looked at the Indigo home automation platform for the Mac (don't have a Mac, but would buy one just for this cool interface with the iPhone), but it doesn't appear to have any security attributes to speak of.
From the CCTV standpoint, I found some cool DVR boxes from Lorex, they also sell cards that I could put into my PC. It appears Avermedia and some other PC platforms are pretty good.
The home automation side is all over the place, I didn't find solid PC-based home automation systems that could also handle security well (preferrably something that you could program from the PC, monitor from the PC, but I didn't know what you would use for keypads, etc.
All that being said, any recommendations? I am leaning towards the Elk M1 Gold, along with either a DVR based camera system or a PC based camera system. My budget is flexible, and I may buy pieces over time, but I would like to stay around $1K (another $500 wouldn't kill me, but another $2K would make my wife kill me).
Are there any good combos for the Elk and a camera system? Are there any software based solutions I should look at?
As a last side note, I do have a pool that uses Jandy equipment, and it appears I can buy some stupid expensive converter box that would allow me to communicate with the pool equipment using serial connections. Oh, and I hate proprietary communication methods as a fyi. Linux vs Windows doesn't matter to me.
Broad enough? Thanks for reading this far. I will share my final system once I pick it.