I bring so many problems here, I thought I'd bring a solution for a change... My wife is still pretty nervous about the whole alarm-entry-delay thing and accidentally triggering the alarm because she didn't get to the keypad quickly enough. She wanted to have some way of knowing, as soon as she starts to pull in the garage, whether the alarm is armed or not.
I had thought of turning on a red LED using one of the outputs on my OPII expansion enclosure. But after playing with one (using a 9V battery), I was concerned about whether or not it would be visible across the whole garage in daylight. So then I thought about a red light bulb maybe screwed into a cheap light fixture on the ceiling and controlled by a UPB switch. But the only colored light bulbs I found were (1) el cheapo 20W table lamp bulbs, which aren't very bright and burn out quickly, and (2) gigantic 150W PAR spots. Too much, and they burn out too.
Well, I happened to be cruising Home Depot last Sunday, and they had a display of these new Feit Electric colored CFLs. They come in red, yellow, orange, green, and "black light". Okay, an inspiration: Get one of those. Screw it into an old fashioned "socket to plug" adaptor, and plug that into a UPB lamp module. Plug that into an outlet somewhere in the garage where it can be seen everywhere.
So I did that. Then, I wrote a rule on the OPII: when either garage door zone becomes not ready, if the system is armed, turn on the lamp module with the red CFL for 5 minutes. It works a treat! As soon as the garage door opens, you can see immediately if the alarm is armed or not. Since the light only goes on with the garage door and doesn't stay on, potential thieves can't tell by looking in the garage window if the alarm is armed. And: The alarm isn't very loud in the garage, so I added an additional rule that if a garage door zone is tripped and any sounder is active, flash the red light.
I had thought of turning on a red LED using one of the outputs on my OPII expansion enclosure. But after playing with one (using a 9V battery), I was concerned about whether or not it would be visible across the whole garage in daylight. So then I thought about a red light bulb maybe screwed into a cheap light fixture on the ceiling and controlled by a UPB switch. But the only colored light bulbs I found were (1) el cheapo 20W table lamp bulbs, which aren't very bright and burn out quickly, and (2) gigantic 150W PAR spots. Too much, and they burn out too.
Well, I happened to be cruising Home Depot last Sunday, and they had a display of these new Feit Electric colored CFLs. They come in red, yellow, orange, green, and "black light". Okay, an inspiration: Get one of those. Screw it into an old fashioned "socket to plug" adaptor, and plug that into a UPB lamp module. Plug that into an outlet somewhere in the garage where it can be seen everywhere.
So I did that. Then, I wrote a rule on the OPII: when either garage door zone becomes not ready, if the system is armed, turn on the lamp module with the red CFL for 5 minutes. It works a treat! As soon as the garage door opens, you can see immediately if the alarm is armed or not. Since the light only goes on with the garage door and doesn't stay on, potential thieves can't tell by looking in the garage window if the alarm is armed. And: The alarm isn't very loud in the garage, so I added an additional rule that if a garage door zone is tripped and any sounder is active, flash the red light.