Ok, I'm brand new to the forum although I have been hanging out in the chat room for the last month or so.
Anyway, I was hoping to get some advice on how to go about installing my own security/homeautomation system.
First of, what I have is basically a 2000 square foot house that is pre-wired to all the doors and windows. I haven't yet tested this wire, it appears to all be homerunned into one location and be sub-Cat3 quality.
I played with Homeseer/X10 a while back just for automation stuff (sadly found it via X10.com before they became spamming ho's.) Anyway, Homeseer then was VERY cool and I look forward to using it in my new venture.
What I want:
1) First and foremost is a good and reliable alarm system.
2) Home automation integration. It seems silly to me for these 2 systems to be seperate. I realize that X10 and other similar technologies are not reliable enough for alarms, but hey, if my home automation misses every now and then no biggie.
3) 2 way integration with Homeseer - I want to be able to arm/disarm/whatever zones from homeseer and have homeseer react to alarm events with X10 or similar actions...whatever they may be.
Electron in the chat room threw a bunch of into at me one night, but I suspect I'm not looking in the right places as I can't find real comparisons. He mentioned Elk M1 (available?) and CaddX.
Although part of my job in the Air Force was taking care of security systems, I really have no idea about the systems on the market in the area I am looking. Searching on my own I found HAI - looked promising but I found it difficult at best to get real documention on it's setup. I know many people have been down this road and was hoping some of you might have some advice/pointers/links/whatever to lead me further on my way.
Oh yeah, one last tidbit - I have about $900 budgeted for the alarm system, assuming I will expand it into home automation down the road.
Thanks in advance for any pointers.....
Anyway, I was hoping to get some advice on how to go about installing my own security/homeautomation system.
First of, what I have is basically a 2000 square foot house that is pre-wired to all the doors and windows. I haven't yet tested this wire, it appears to all be homerunned into one location and be sub-Cat3 quality.
I played with Homeseer/X10 a while back just for automation stuff (sadly found it via X10.com before they became spamming ho's.) Anyway, Homeseer then was VERY cool and I look forward to using it in my new venture.
What I want:
1) First and foremost is a good and reliable alarm system.
2) Home automation integration. It seems silly to me for these 2 systems to be seperate. I realize that X10 and other similar technologies are not reliable enough for alarms, but hey, if my home automation misses every now and then no biggie.
3) 2 way integration with Homeseer - I want to be able to arm/disarm/whatever zones from homeseer and have homeseer react to alarm events with X10 or similar actions...whatever they may be.
Electron in the chat room threw a bunch of into at me one night, but I suspect I'm not looking in the right places as I can't find real comparisons. He mentioned Elk M1 (available?) and CaddX.
Although part of my job in the Air Force was taking care of security systems, I really have no idea about the systems on the market in the area I am looking. Searching on my own I found HAI - looked promising but I found it difficult at best to get real documention on it's setup. I know many people have been down this road and was hoping some of you might have some advice/pointers/links/whatever to lead me further on my way.
Oh yeah, one last tidbit - I have about $900 budgeted for the alarm system, assuming I will expand it into home automation down the road.
Thanks in advance for any pointers.....