Recent content by Mr.Tim

Nice article.. and thanks for the heads up. Insteon is looking attractive at this point. I just can't bring myself to do it. Especially since the Aspire RF looks so gorgeous ;) Still not committed, Tim

Months later... seems the zw523 is discontinued. Boca seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. On to plan B. If I can close a pair of dry contacts when I want to trigger an event, is there any way to connect a zwave transmitter to the contacts? In other words, I don't want to trigger...

After a lot of consideration, what I did was have a standard 120v/bb fire alarm system installed. Of course, they use the cheapest detectors which are ionization type. I then supplemented the system with low voltage (ademco 5192sd) photoelectric type detectors. I installed a 5192 at the...

Irrigation valves are 24vac, not 24vdc. Is the transformer providing ac or dc? Good luck, Tim

Each manufacturer does their own thing. Smoke detectors should come with a compatibility matrix that tells you what they will work with. Also, many manufacturers make 120v/bb smokes with form c relays (gentex is another). most muni's make it difficult to use anything but the 120v/bb. If you...

Thanks Wayne! Actually the one I was aware of was made by Wayne.. Wayne Dalton. And I couldn't find it anywhere. I'll see what the pricing is as SmartHome before I take the plunge. Thanks again, Tim

Has anybody seen an x10 to zwave bridge in the wild? They are sporatically mentioned on he web, but I haven't seen anywhere to buy one. I have an ademco panel with x10 capability, but I want to control zwave switches. I could also use the ademco to close a relay instead of issuing an x10...

Following up.. Point well taken regarding the Elk being a security panel with some nice HA features. As I do not need any relays (other than switches etc which would be via powerline interface) at this time, I have decided to go with a Midon temp08 which will be monitored via software (leaning...

Spanky- Thanks for the info, seems like using the analog inputs might be more work than I'd care to do John- Point well taken. I don't know that I would have a tremendous amount of rules, but the limited instruction set is worth noting. The Homevision Pro definitely has a rich feature set...

I agree with the point that all of these temeratures would be too much for the Elk. I got off on a bit of a tangent as I got further into the post. A lot of these temperatures would be monitored only, which could be handled external from the Elk (by necessity perhaps, although I wonder what...

I think for as long as the m1/m1g has been in production I've been seeing conversations about temperature sensing options for the units. Conversations about how to make the sensors looks better, and recently an excellent analysis of how elk sensors communicate. From my [largely...