two dwelling unit building with M1G

[newalarm]

Just bough M1G.

We have a house with a basement rental. We want to allow renter to use the alarm and create effectively 2 partitions or areas. The problem i am seeing is with the speaker system. Everytime you arm the system, the speakers will go off in the other unit. I want to be able to monitor what goes on in the rental (fire alarm, water leak, intrusion etc...) and the renter needs to know as well if something occurs in our space (fire for example).

Would one solution be to use siren in both spaces for alarms. Then use speaker only in main house? I guess this would mean we hear the arming disarming of rental area.

Can you also create a shortcut to arm several zones at the same time with push of one button (I want to garage as third zone)?

Can you give each keypad restrictions on what zones they can arm?

Thanks. (sorry if questions seem basic. still figuring things out).

 

[wuench]

There is a delay between the alarm over the speakers, to give you time to react before all hell breaks loose, but it can be adjusted. You can also just disable the voice messages you don't want to hear so you could turn off the arm/disarm messages, etc, the keypads still beep. I have shut off a lot of mine, those messages can get annoying over time.

And a keypad is assigned to a particular area so you can separate them.

To do the multiple area arm thing you can write a rule and activate it with a keypad button but I think most people have strayed away from the idea on makeing the garage a separate area, there should be some posts on that somewhere. I think it caused more trouble and complexity than is saved.

 

[signal15]

You could have two zones of speakers connected to a relay board. Then, using automation rules, you could turn on the relays for the relevant zone when things happened. Alarm goes off for area 1, then activate area 1 speaker relay.

You're still going to run into issues though with things like voice door chimes I think.

 

[Del91574]

I'd have to know more specifically as far as what is announced in each area as far as importance, however, I see the only real item of importance may be a fire alarm, as an intrusion may not be advisable for them to know about it (or false).

The problem of wiring the speakers to a relay board for speakers is going to be the impedance the board itself sees, which is likely to let out some of the magic smoke.

As far as partitioning the garage, I have mine separate and arm via rules following the main house and scheduled, as well as a F-key shortcut/status indicator.

 

[newalarm]

Thanks for ideas. All good. I guess i can also put a siren in each unit, that would sound when there is a major alarm and not put speaker in the rental. Can you get sirens with various decibel levels? Would like to get one that is not too loud if possible. The way life goes, most alarms are false and therefore annoying as you are scrambling to turn it off.

Sounds like I will need to dive into this more when i start installing and programming. for now, just running wire.

 

[apostolakisl]

The problem of wiring the speakers to a relay board for speakers is going to be the impedance the board itself sees, which is likely to let out some of the magic smoke.

This is only a problem if you put them in parrallel. When speakers are placed in series, the impedence is additive (2 speaker at 4 ohms is 8 ohms total), when they are placed in parrallel, the impedence is calculated by 1/speaker1 + 1/speaker2 = 1/total. So with the same speakers 1/4 +1/4 = 1/2, or 2 ohms total resistance.

You can use relays to put the speakers together either way. You do the math and figure out which way you want, just don't go too low on the total .. .or bad things may happen, especially if you turn the volume up.

Of note: the volume of the system will change if one speaker is used vs if both are used. You can counteract this using resistors. Using double poll relays, when the relay throws to speaker off side, have a resistor over there equal to the speakers. You waste a little "juice" doing it this way (burning it off in the resistor), but your volumes will be consistent no matter which are on.