Advice needed for new build with some old gear

[knctrnl]

I had a house fire and have since rebuilt sold and moved on to another venture.
I bought a new 3000sq foot house that has an addition.
The front part of the house is 2000sq ft single story ranch style with 2 car garage and great attic access. It has 2 bedroom, kitchen living room and office.
The back portion is accessible through the office and has a sunroom, ensuite bedroom, upstairs bonus room and another 2 car garage.
There are doors to storage areas on either side of the 2 story portion. The side facing the house has a cutout going into the attic access for the rest of the house. The other side is above the garage and is strictly storage. I do not have any conduit that can find between the main house and the garage and getting cabling into the additions bedroom and garage could be troublesome. There is existing telephone lines in the rooms i could possibly use for something if needed.
I have 2 HVAC units, one for main part of house and one for addition. Both HVAC units are in the attic and vents are in the ceilings. Main house ducts are easily accessible for dampers If i ever go that route. If i ever have to replace carpet in the upstairs area I could probably get access to ducts for rear of house.
 
I was able to salvage some gear from my old house. Some was in use and some I had just bought to play with.
I have ISY994i with PLM and Zwave, Smartthings hub, 3 Insteon lamp switches, 3 Insteon inline dimmers, 1 Insteon fanlink. 1 insteon 8 button keypadlink, 2 leviton zwave switches, 3 leviton zwave dimmers. I also have a bunch of Sonos speakers and a connected Marantz 3 zone reciever.
I have chamberlain myq in the front garage and a zwave garage door opener in the back garage.
 
My goal is to acquire a security system (right now I am leaning towards Elk M1).
I would like to eventually have door sensors on all external doors and motion sensors in each room for occupancy and lighting automation as well as for alarm triggering.
I would also like to have touch screen keypads in 2 bedrooms and living room for scene selection in each of the rooms and back porch.
In one room and back porch I would like to have color adjustment and music selection be part of the scene selection and the other room just light brighness and music selection. The keypads should also be able to show security system status, room occupancy and garage door status. I would also like the touch screens to show video from cameras. I currenly have 2 nest outdoor but I am not opposed to replacing them.
I have several old android tablets and iPads that could be used for the touchscreens.
 
 

Would you guys suggest anything other than the Elk?
Are there any other products that I would need to pull this off?
For motion sensors I have 2 boxers. One is 65lbs the other is a puppy but will be about the same size eventually. What would be my best option here?
What is the most graceful way of controlling the Sonos? I have found Smartthings clunky and I have a couple of intercom iPhone apps that let you broadcast messages to all speakers but the Sonos does not resume playing what it was playing before. Is there anything that can make Sonos seamless?
Any suggestions on video cameras that are more responsive than nest? Local storage preferably. I have a Synology Diskstation that has DVR capabilities.
What package would you suggest to drive the touch screens?
 
Sorry for the long post and thank you to anyone who can make sense of my babbling.
 
 
 

 

[pete_c]

Wired sensors these days are a bit more improved than the ones from yesteryear.  Newest PIRs that are reasonably priced now utilize both adaptive PIR and Microwave.  (using 2 pair alarm cabling) and door and windows switches are about the same except today you can utilize supermagnets and hide the sensors away from the frames sight unseen; much cleaner looking.  This is the same whatever alarm panel you utilize.  Wireless for alarm panel sensors are much improved these days.  My preference here though is in the wired sensor for security.  That is me.
 
A thermostat is a thermostat is a thermostat.  The efficiency of your furnace or AC relates to the insulation and supply and return vent size for maximum efficiency.  Old HVAC friend always has mentioned that you want to be able to heat the home with one candle and cool it with one ice cube.  Here still using a thermostat serially wired to the mothership (Omni Pro 2).  No bells and whistles.  Just works.  I never touch it and primarily look at it and a variety of temperature / humidity sensors throughout the home.
 
Here my audio is very legacy using Russound and in wall speakers.  Sources of audio have changed throughout the years.  Control is via Russound keypads, Omnitouch screens and automation software Homeseer touchscreens using a micro serial server.  (touchscreens are wired embedded Wintel - preference over Android or iOS - or tablets - that is me).
 
Relating to remote control I am not tethered here to my smartphone(s) / tablets and typically they are off mode when in the home or not being utilized.  Touchscreens are POE GB wired to main house LAN and old touchscreens are serially wired to the mothership.   The option for remote control via a WAN connections remains in place but never really utilized.  That is me.
 
DIY'd last NAS build with an 8 drive hot swap thing and a quad core mITX motherboard and an 8 drive IBM SATA/RAID controller (LSi) using FreeNAS (BSD).  (8 X 4 = 32Tb).  Custom case was around $170 a few years back.  Tight fit.
 
Other NAS boxes here are off the shelf with embedded Linux OS's and have run fine for many years now.
 
Here for CCTV have always utilized ZM and DIY'd cameras from the beginning of IP HD cameras.  The cameras today are little computers.  No wireless cameras are utilized. ZM box using multple drives in a Raid arrangement.
 
I have integrated the CCTV viewing to my automation.  I have never purchased automation software based on CCTV and have kept it autonomous mostly from automation; same with alarm security.  I do utilize the automation as an addendum to the CCTV and alarm security.
 
Relating to just CCTV I would check out the CCTV security forums relating to CCTV and the variety of cameras utilized today.
 
I have updated my garage door opener(s) to using myQ stuff and still continue to wire sensors and GDO opener to mothership OmniPro panel.  Testing out a DIY'd wireless SonOff basic WiFi device with Tasmota firmware and using MQTT for remote control.  This will be the first time I am doing anything wirelessly with the GDO.  Personally prefer not to have "cloud" dependencies.  Again that is me.
 
For my light switches here utilizing powerline UPB and for Christmas lighting using X10.  I do have ZWave and Zigbee stuff on line mostly for tinkering and now testing wireless mosquitto automation.
 
Still in the world of finding LED lamps that dim and work with my switches.  I have tinkered with remote control RGB lighting but not really using it. 
 
Note that the above is related to what I have done.  I do not work for any of the above companies and have DIY'd most if not all of my home automation / security et al.

 

[Smarty]

Can't go wrong with the Elk M1 choice....it just works.
 
As for motion sensors with the Boxers.....likely won't work....focus on perimeter (door, window etc.) sensors instead (unless there are times the house is fully empty (like if the dogs are boarded when you are on vacation).
 
Really can't add anything else that would be helpful.....my approach relies on some older stuff that is no longer available....