New house. Another Elk?

[signal15]

I'm going to be moving into a new house.  My current house has an M1 Gold that I installed about 5 years ago, with the hopes of doing a lot of automation with it.  It didn't really live up to my automation expectations, until I got a Vera and moved all of the automation rules and control onto that.  That's where it really started to shine.  I like the Elk for security, it works great for that.  And the relay boards are definitely useful.  I still have a couple of automation rules on the Elk, but they are pretty much just logic for the garage doors, and doing certain things when the chime is turned on and off.
 
So, should I get another Elk if the automation is going to be done on another platform?  Or is there something else I should be looking at?  I know DSC is well supported by 3rd party products, but honestly, their stuff seems pretty dated.

 

[Del91574]

I've installed almost every contemporary manufacturer out there so I'll put my $.02 in. (HAI, Elk, Honeywell/Ademco/FBII, ITI/GE/Caddx, Napco, DSC, Paradox, Morse/Optex)
 
When you offload the automation into another platform or run the M1 with one, the differences get blurred.
 
I'm not a fan of DSC. I've had QC issues and build quality with their product. IMHO, it's a budget or value-line product. WIll it work, sure, but the flexibility isn't there compared to an M1. You may need to buy more hardware or 3rd party products to get into what you might want the security or combined systems perform together. The big item is how flexible the system is for customization. The truth is, with the M1, if you want to tweak the operation, arming or end user experience (scroll arming, F key illumination, code protecting menus, individual backlighting options) that isn't found in the other products out there. There's a lot the platform can integrate with easily the other manufacturers don't support easily or at all (weigand, multiple RF support, etc).
 
If you don't necessarily care about the voice aspect of the M1 or the onboard serial/interface and some of the very granular items, you can get into an EZ8, knocking about $150-200 off the cost and still maintaining almost all the same abilities, with hardware being slightly different....but the cost gets blurred when you start adding ports, ethernet....what have you.
 
I think the largest item to look at before the panel would be the host HA controller...and what sort of (if any) interface or integration the 2 entities or yourself may want.

 

[picta]

Since you are also interested in a centralized lighting system, you may want to rethink your automation setup. Vera is good if you use z-wave for lighting, otherwise it may be best to host HA logic in a controller such as Elk or HAI. Vera is just a way better controller for z-wave, but not for other functions. I keep majority of my lighting rules in HAI, and that allows for the best response time in events based on motion, such as turning lights on, announcing, controlling climate functions etc. HAI has a built-in interface for centralite, I think Elk has a module also but I have not tried it. When you use hardwired components in you automation setup it is a whole lot different experience than having to deal with the capricious nature of wireless stuff. After the initial set-up you can really forget about it, it works all the time and will probably outlive your refrigerator ;-)

 

[neillt]

I have become a major fan of HAI with HaikuHelper installed somewhere.  Let the HAI handle time sensitive and security stuff, but then HaikuHelper really opens the doors for complex logic.  I haven't found something I can't do with it so far, but you need to be willing to learn Javascript.

 

[signal15]

Since you are also interested in a centralized lighting system, you may want to rethink your automation setup. Vera is good if you use z-wave for lighting, otherwise it may be best to host HA logic in a controller such as Elk or HAI. Vera is just a way better controller for z-wave, but not for other functions. I keep majority of my lighting rules in HAI, and that allows for the best response time in events based on motion, such as turning lights on, announcing, controlling climate functions etc. HAI has a built-in interface for centralite, I think Elk has a module also but I have not tried it. When you use hardwired components in you automation setup it is a whole lot different experience than having to deal with the capricious nature of wireless stuff. After the initial set-up you can really forget about it, it works all the time and will probably outlive your refrigerator ;-)

 
It is true that the Vera is meant for Zwave stuff.  But, there are plugins for a lot of other things out there to get Vera to integrate.  From what I can tell, there is no plugin for Centralite, but that doesn't mean one couldn't be written.  It all depends on how decent Centralite's API is.
 
The more I think about it, the more I think the Elk is still the right option.  HAI might be an option also, but if I'm doing all of the automation somewhere else, it doesn't really make sense to pay a premium for HAI.  Plus, I am already very comfortable with configuring the Elk.  I'd have to learn a whole new platform to go with the HAI.  That's not a big deal, but it is something to consider.  HAI was also more expensive than the Elk when I priced things out 5 years ago, and the Elk seemed to have more functionality then (or at least more options to integrate with weird things).

 

[Del91574]

HAI is more about getting everything on one platform IMHO....while there are plenty of integration applications with 3rd party products, HAI's bread and butter was and will continue to be offering the HA system as a large product that can be pulled out of a single box, so to speak.
 
While there's nothing wrong with it, the main reason why I see HAI installed a lot of times is because the original installer/electrician wants a product they can simply take out of the box and make work without all sorts of drivers, firmware, coding, whatever. It takes a lot of the legwork out of the equation because they see HAI as the brand...it should all work together as a system, not a sum of all the components.
 
When it comes to the big players and programming, AMX and Crestron, there's a plugin or driver available for every manufacturer out there provided the system can offload the data.
 
Unfortunately, HAI has their panel platform tiered...if you want the ability to have all the toys in the toybox you need to pay up front for a premium product, priced as such, instead of a more modular panel format. I can't fault HAI for that, however their main forte is being a HA platform that happens to do security (why else would they offer the controller with no security options) where the M1 is the exact reverse. Look at HAI's RF device offerings....(I know, Elk's OEM unit is somewhat on the same level) and their RF integration compared to even the most basic panel by any other manufacturer out there in the last 20 years.

It's not that Elk doesn't have faults or quirks, but in the case now that both platforms are aging (Omni far more so) I'd be curious as to if HAI is going to be backwards compatible, where realistically, I'm more inclined to believe Elk is going to more progressive...but we still don't know the Ness story and what it means with them.

 

[picta]

Elk or HAI is a matter of personal preference on some features, but both of these systems strength is that they are "closed" systems developed by single manufacture and all the interfaces for 3d party products are optimized for these systems. This gives you an advantage in reliability, as well as faster processing of critical events, like sensor states. The "plugin" based systems are not as fast and not reliable as much and get worse in case of "open platforms" when anyone can write a plugin. There are software controllers that maintain strict quality assurance over the plugins as well, but in example of Homeseer the abundance of 3d party plugins that were not developed well to not interfere with each other compromised the underlying system's reliability. This is why I run all my critical rules in a single platform system, while having all the complex and non-critical stuff executing in a software controller. If you are not that concerned about latency of your lighting rules and not relying on too many 3d party plugins, then Vera is probably ok. Otherwise, Elk or HAI or a closed software controller like CQS would be a better option for core automation, and you could supplement it with running non-critical events in Vera or other open system with a variety of plugins.