to Dan and Work2Play thanks again for your input.
I worked in the security business since i was 19 years old when a friend of the family who owned a company recruited me. I stopped working on the field once i moved to the US and i think the time away from all this is starting to show.
I agree 100% with your points of view, and trust me i am very paranoid when i comes to security, i have seem the most unusual and outrageous ways to break into a place or business in those years when i worked for that security company.
My job wasnt designing or planning or even installing a system, the owner did that work but many times i was with him and got to learn a few things.
My real job was to make sure we had the communication and monitoring part covered. I set up his alarm central station and learn to program just about any panel in order to monitor every possible signal.
With that in mind it was very difficult for me decide which control panel to buy, putting aside the home automation capabilities, i wanted something i could monitor myself, I personally do not like any company out there to monitor my stuff, paying someone 30 bucks a month just to monitor when my system goes into alarm doesnt make sense to me, its knowing when other very important issues happen that could hinder your system also is very important (your arm/disarmed status to pinpoint a false alarm, low battery, ac loss, phone line cut, lost transmitters, etc). most big monitoring companies dont monitor any of that including ADT when i worked for them in Virgina back in 2002.
The elk is the only panel that allows me to self monitor my system and thats why i bought it, but im no fan of either GE or Ademco devices, DSC or Rokonet proved to us in the field their superior capabilities.
Now let me tell you why everything i said relates to my current situation....
1) I got a keyfob that doesnt seem to work right outside the garage, its a hit or miss situation, unlike other keyfobs that have an lcd that give you feedback after you pressed a button i really have no way of knowing if my system received that command after i pressed the button. it could be a defective keyfob perhaps but its brand new and the antenna is not that far from the outside of the home, i have seen keyfobs working at a very far distance.
2) I personally like the idea of the strobe and its the simplest way for me to deal with my situation. I would need a strobe rated for continuous duty and also with bulbs that i can replace, those strobes are not cheap those are for industrial settings, then i would have to deal with amperage ratings and what output on the elk to install it.
i have an elk strobe inside connected to output2 and set the global options to "voltage" on output2.
3) As far as email or text messaging reporting capabilities of the elk, i think a lot needs to be done. It took me a few hours to find out how to announce the violated zone when the system calls me during an alarm condition. Someone here was trying to do the same thing without success so i sat down and tried to figure it out. A system that can call me to tell me there is an alarm but cant tell me which zone... to me is garbage, 20 years ago when people got a phone dialer and recorded their own voice because technology had limitations yeah i get that.
I also noticed there is no way to either call me or text me or email me when a "particular user" has or hasnt armed or disarmed the system, something a lot of parents would like to use to monitor their kids when they come from school.
Also i cant program the elk to send me a text message or email telling me the exact issue going on with the system, in other words i cant put together the message the same way we put together a rule, the same way the panel would send a contact id or SIA report code to a central station with and event number and zone number etc but in plain english so anyone in my family can know whats going on at any time prior to entering the house.
Yes i can buy a gsm communicator and program the elk to send a text message with the alarm code on SIA or Contact ID but my family is not gonna memorize those tables with all the event id numbers to know what they mean
If you guys know how to write a rule saying "whenever something happens and system is armed away email mike violated zone name etc" or
"whenever is 3pm and system is not disarmed by used kid then email mom"
I could do all that with central station software but no monitoring company is gonna do that for you, not out here in US unless you know one that does it.
4) I have an arming station located inside between the internal garage door and the living room, I could move it to the other side of the wall and place it inside the garage space where we park the cars but to me it would be useless, being as paranoid as we all are, the way my house is setup there is a blind spot where someone could hide and wait for the garage door to open and attack you as you pull in or get out of the car. Im all about keeping the bad guys outside my perimeter and not inside when it could be too late to do something. But the open concept these builders got in mind doesnt address privacy or security, I dont have a fence in front of my house so its basically open to anyone from the street to simply come uninvited, thats how my trash was "stolen" sitting on the driveway by the rolling garage door.
It made more sense to either "see" the status from outside or have any change of status reported to us.
i do agree with you, anyone could watch from a distance and figure out the lights etc, and attack at the right time, i also agree with the keypad location as well, thats why i moved my lcd keypad from the first floor to the second and got an arming station, because of its size is hard to read or even see the color of the status led's.
Again thank you guys for all your time, I hope im not trying to reinvent the wheel or going around in circles
