To Elk or not to Elk

[gizmosrcool]

Hi Everyone.

I am considering replacing a Ademco panel with an Elk M1. Our current panel is not used alot for a number of reason and I want to make things simpler, easier to use, and integrate into an Insteon and CQC system. So I have a few questions.

1. Anyone know who makes the box that comes with some of the bundles? Is it their own? Or do they use someone Else's, say Leviton's or one of the other structured wiring kinds.

2. Heat. How much heat does it all generate. current box is in a coat closet near the front door. I can relocated it to the basement and place in the heat/AC room with say-4-8 hours of work. In the coat closet its gets no air or circulation.

3. wireless. How well does the wireless work. The basement and 1st floor are wired and I will add wireless sensors to the 2nd floor to just be sure. I will also like to add some motion sensors to know when folks are walking around. So I can see this from CQC when I am not home.

4. Motion. I have a 25lb and 60lb dog. Do any of the MT's work with the larger dog? She likes the couch in the living room during the day and there is a MT in the corner covering the room. Do these really work.

5. Garage. I see with the wireless you can get a keyfob, but anyone make a garage door opener that integrates with Elk. It would be cool to have a sensor that knows when the door is open and it was opened by the garage door opener, to disarm the garage.

Thx, Tom.

 

[IVB]

The only question I know about is the heat. Mine generates damn well near zero heat, at least in a measurable way. Given that these things have a tendency to extend themselves as you realize they can do so much, which location would be better from a future wiring perspective? I had to move mine cuz I initially thought i'd be running only a handful of wires, but 70+runs later...

For wireless, you'll get many folks telling you it's rock solid, but my experience was otherwise. I haven't yet upgraded to the latest Elk RF firmware though, so it may have been addressed since my time.

For garage doors, i think BSR wrote up a guide in the "How To" forum here.

 

[Steve]

Welcome to CocoonTech Tom.

1. Elks is a little different than Leviton or Channel Vision, I don't know their source. The are all fairly compatible with each other.

2. Like IVB said, heat is a non issue with the panel itself.

3. It works pretty well. I get a few falses and 'fake' low battery signals occasionally. I usually don't recommend wireless for main security, but rather supplemental security and automation. You should be ok with the wireless just for extra protection on second floor. Wireless motions have a lockout of a few minutes to save battery power. They are usually best for security and not automation.

4. There are several types of motions and usually you can achieve what you want by using a proper type of motion with proper placement.

5. Garage door are easy. Just use a GD sensor to detect state and wire the opener to a relay to open/close. You can then also use the keyfob to open/close. Imho, its not a good idea to disarm the system when garage door is opened. Sort of defeats security unless you can be sure it is an authorized person that opened it.

 

[HighTest]

1. Anyone know who makes the box that comes with some of the bundles? Is it their own? Or do they use someone Else's, say Leviton's or one of the other structured wiring kinds.

It's their own, but they are available in sizes similar to the Leviton and OnQ. In fact, for those that have existing Leviton and OnQ panels, they have an adapter plate available. I simply used a drill and some sheet metal pan head screws to do the job. Worked fantastically. Their battery shelf and other accessories plug in just like Leviton modules.

2. Heat. How much heat does it all generate. current box is in a coat closet near the front door. I can relocated it to the basement and place in the heat/AC room with say-4-8 hours of work. In the coat closet its gets no air or circulation.

It's designed for this. I haven't used a temperature probe, but when opening the cover of the panel and checking the heat, I really can't detect a temp difference in the static air around the device. Might increase with lots of modules, but I tended to spread those out over the home, leads to shorter home runs for some devices.

3. wireless. How well does the wireless work. The basement and 1st floor are wired and I will add wireless sensors to the 2nd floor to just be sure. I will also like to add some motion sensors to know when folks are walking around. So I can see this from CQC when I am not home.

The wireless is somewhat of a more complex issue. Several Elk owners are using a GE NX-584E or similar wireless receiver used by the GE NX NetworX panels. Requires a special wiring harness that connects to an auxilary bus that isn't currently used by any other purpose on the Elk M1. Recently Elk released their own wireless receivers that use the Elk RS-485 databus and can be positioned anywhere in the home (like keypads for example). In addition to supporting 144 devices versus the 48 of the GE receiver, there is another important feature of the ELK M1XRF2G receiver, you can use several of them! This allows you to place them throughout a much larger home for improved coverage.

It's important to decide which receiver you'll use as each require a different firmware for the Elk M1G and are not compatible with each other (can't use a GE NX reciever with the Elk M1G firmware for the M1XRF2G and vice versa). Part of the reason is that with the Elk M1XRF2G, Elk didn't need to keep a very sizeable chunk of code in the firmware to emulate the NX NetworX bus for the NX-548E receiver. This extra memory space might be planned for possible use for extended features in the future (or rumoured, I don't have a direct line to the source on this ) Elk has officially stated that they'll continue to support the older NX-548E method and will provide both firmware sets in the future. The NX supporting firmware may not have certain features that the other would have due to a reduced memory footprint for the NX bus emulation.

As for the wireless versus hardwired camp, you'll find proponents in both camps. If you can do hardwired, you'll find that to be the most reliable and best choice for "mission critical" functions. Plus you don't have to worry about replacing batteries. As for wireless, the quality of the sensors has improved over the years. However, I don't feel they should be for "mission critical" and should be checked frequently. Wireless receivers are just that, one way communication from the sensor so the only method to determine if a sensor has failed is to wait for a signal to quit. Sensors typically have what I call a "keep alive" message they periodically send to let the system know they are still functioning. Some also have a battery low signal. The problem is that you can have the panel wait for up to 24 hours (see option R03 in the ElkRP software) to look for "non-fire" transmitters. Plenty of time for me to load all of your stuff into my moving van

4. Motion. I have a 25lb and 60lb dog. Do any of the MT's work with the larger dog? She likes the couch in the living room during the day and there is a MT in the corner covering the room. Do these really work.

We have a 60lb Australian Shepard. We use "hardwired" DT-7435 (honeywell) and DT-500 (C&K) sensors, both are rated for animals up to 100lbs. Didn't trust wireless motion sensors, so went hardwire. Pretty much the doors, motions, glass breaks and all smokes and co detectors are hardwired. We use wireless for all the others, but they are more for additional information that isn't the core of our security plan. With security bars in place on the sliding glass doors and windows, the wireless contacts are more for our reminder that we've left a window open. The glass break is far more likely to detect their smashing a window open than them figuring some way to jimmy and open it triggering a contact.

5. Garage. I see with the wireless you can get a keyfob, but anyone make a garage door opener that integrates with Elk. It would be cool to have a sensor that knows when the door is open and it was opened by the garage door opener, to disarm the garage.

Here's the real reason we added wireless to our Elk. We've assigned the two extra buttons on the keyfob to control lighting and garage controll. When I press the button on the fob, a rule in the ElkRP triggers a relay output that presses the garage opening button for us. This way we can have our alarm armed and pressing the button on the fob makes sure we've disarmed the alarm before opening the garage. This way our relatives, who are clueless for codes can use a simple keyfob to enter our home (in-laws are just a couple miles away, so we can have them run errands for us and so on. What's that? Your in-laws don't do all those things for you? I do so much for them that they feel very gratefull for the opportunities to repay the favors. Gratefull in-laws leads to grateful spouse too! )


All in all, my family loves the Elk. I think you might as well.