What's the #$@#$ point??

[Steve]

Steve, how do you have those connected? to what output? how many? in series or in parallel? i'm not familiar with electrical stuff at all, so i don't know about amps and watts and what not...

Ummm, I'm not entirely sure It's my sisters place but I think I just put them both in parallel on Output 2, but I'd have to look to be sure.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

I put three of those in parallel for my friend's Elk M1 install.

 

[Spanky]

Concerning hurting the child's ears from a false alarm:

There is a feature in the M1 on output 1 and other ELK sirens called volume stepping. The siren will start at a low volume and progressively increase in volume over time. There are 7 steps with each step increase at a 10 second interval. This allows for a false triggered alarm to be cancelled before the volume gets too loud to distress the child. If the burglar does not leave, he gets the full volume of the siren.

 

[ver0776]

My system is not monitored, and because I have pets, I have to avoid the false alarm issue. I do this through interaction. For example, the door alarm simply texts me that the door was open. Screen door + Front Door + Entry Motion = House entered is confirmed, for this the house talks and texts me again. At this point I can read the logs on my phone, watch for additional activity and check the cameras. If I MYSELF confirm that someone is in the house I call 911 and/or I click the button to blow the sirens (sorry pets). I control when I turn them off too, so no scripts to mess up. Well, you can have backup rules that engage if no manual input from you was received after so much time, but bottom line, quick access to control the house beats any AI.

A rolling log is your BEST friend, if they broke in the door, they will need to move around to threaten your stuff, you can watch for that and even keep the police on the phone reading them the current status and where the intruder is, etc. Other deterants like lighting control, TTS/Wav files can make the entire ordeal for the thief tramatic too. Having neighbors numbers on hand or even have your system call or text them in addition to any outside lights/sirens that may alert them. They can respond faster than anyone. Return the favor/service to them.

1 magnetic sensor on a door is inadequate for a security system to make a assesment of whether you have been broke into, whether you are monitored or not does not even matter with these. =(

ROLL YER OWN!
An ADT sign just tells them what they are dealing with. Ring you own phone so they think the security company is calling, talk to them, play wav files of staged 911 dialog, use super brite lights in your house, but have the automation run them at 30%, the bulbs will last forever then and when someone breaks in blast them to 100% then turn them off and repeat.

Canned alarm packages are just old news... If you want to rob a house with one of those, trip the alarm once a week or so until the occupants can't pay the $50 fee any more and stop using it! It can only save them so many times. When he hears talking inside and lights coming on and the house taunting him before he even gets the door open, then he is just scared and confused. Put cameras up, even if they are dead RMA's, make it look like you have a friggen 4-8 channels system up, they will not want to have to find that DVR which may even be locked up or in an attic.


HA I babble, I LOVE this stuff though! (And I would never post anything that I could not or am not doing on my own low cost system)

Vaughn

 

[coppercox]

So I got a call this morning from NextAlarm (great service by the way... can't say enough good things about them) that one of my motion detectors tripped and my alarm was activated, would I like for them to dispatch police? Of course I would, they can get there a lot faster than I can. So we finish talking and I hop in my car and make the 20 minute drive home. I pull up out front and see nothing, so I decide I'm going to either wait for the police to show up or wait for NextAlarm to call me back before I go inside. Instead, I call NextAlarm directly to make sure things were dispatched, and they said yes, we called the police 20 minutes ago. So I wait 5 more minutes before the first police car shows up.

Fortunately, it was a false alarm (not sure why), but when he got done going through the house with his gun drawn (well worth a $50 false alarm charge should it show up), I asked the guy why it took him so long to show up. He said it took him 30 seconds to show from the time he was called, and then verified with dispatch that it took 25 minutes to dispatch the call. He said alarms are not priority calls.

Now, if they are going to take 25 minutes from when my alarm goes off, what is the #*@#$ point of having an alarm? 25 minutes would be more than enough time for anybody to clean me out.

Being a cop in a city of 200,000 we categorize our alarm calls as "priority 2" meaning they must be dispatched within 1 minute. Every veteran cop knows a good alarm when it goes out over the radio just by hearing what type of sensors were activated: glass break sensor and motion sensor or an alarm call with multiple successive motion sensor activations. 'DeLicious' since your police force won't upgrade their response time for alarms you need to get the call changed to a higher priority call. Here's how: Make your alarm company require that two or more sensors be activated before they call you. Have them tell you what sensors have been activated so you can relay this to the dispatcher. Then when you get the alarm call you may call the police yourself and report "a burglary in progress" which is a high priority call (this isn't being deceptive because you have actual multiple sensors going off and therefore good reason to believe it is an actual break-in (Ask yourself: "Do I really believe someone has broken into my home or could this be two sensors different sensors going off?"). I must stress that you cannot do this if you have only one sensor activate. And do not ever, ever lie to the police (People tend to report "guns" involved to get a faster police response). Did I mention not to do this if only one sensor activates?