Home security system.

[Duke{CLR}]

Is this something I could do myself? It just has a box that you have to punch a code into before the horn goes off. The only thing would be complicated would be the monitoring service. Are there services out there that i can get to do this if I install it myself? This particular service has a way of warning you on your smartphone too is there some way of doing that?. Here is the quote I have, what do you all think?

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/5901/securityquote.jpg (http://img248.imageshack.us/i/securityquote.jpg/)

[Apache Warrior]

As far as I know the text and email alerts are specific, you have to subscribe to a service. You can install your own alarm but it can be quite involved and tricky depending on how complicated your box is. The keypad is not the box. Think of the box as the CPU, motherboard and case for your system. the keypad would be your keyboard. Also can you trouble shoot yours if something goes wrong?
My store alarm system has door sensors, movement sensors, glass breakage sensors, cell back up, high speed Internet connection, silent alarm buttons throughout the store, remote hold up buttons, sensors on all vaults and anti tamper on the phone lines. I also have the maintenance plan so I do not have to pay for troubleshooting or repairs. I can also arm disarm or do anything I want to my system using my computer or pone. I also get texts and emails when the system is armed, disarmed or is triggered. Monitoring here costs me $30.00 a month.

[DougBob]

I haven't had that much experience with the home alarm systems or the availability of subscribing an already installed system to a service. I can say technically yes you can have alerts sent to your smart phone via SMS, email, etc. I'm sure some probably have apps that come with systems.

Wish I had more info to give. Hopefully the others will be able to fill in the gaps here.

[NateTheBrewer]

Sorry for any formatting issues, typing this from the iPad...

Part of what we do at my call center is central station alarm monitoring. Basically, in the alarm world there are 2 tiers of service providers. The first tier are the companies that do the equipment installs and servicing. They handle the customer contract, hardware, and also managing the procedures. They contract with us (a central station - the other tier) to actually monitor the system. When you change your procedures or contact procedures with them, they will actually log into a web access that we host, and make the changes on our database.

Being certified as a central station involves a lot of very expensive redundancy, which the call center in turn benefits from. We have 3 Internet connections and about a half dozen ways we can get phone calls through. All of this benefits the call center operations as well.

The benefit of the 2 tiers is that you can indeed install the hardware yourself and contract with a central station directly. This is not as common, because we normally go after contracts for all of the customers at a given alarm installer. We will not, however, turn down individual accounts... We charge a much lower rate because you are basically buying the coverage direct, versus through a reseller. The stipulation would be that we don't want to have to support your hardware. - that's on you.

For example, a large national alarm services company will do your install for free and provide the hardware for free, and charge you $30 a month. The hardware would usually be worth about $100, plus the man hours to set it up. With the monthly fee, $10 of that goes to us to pay for the monitoring, and $20 of it goes to their bottom line. In this way, they have made back the setup costs in under a year. They also can usually count in having that customer for several years, as it is more of a utility to the customer, and thy tend to cancel things like HBO on their cable before canceling alarm service. Couple this with the fact that when that person moves, the panel will remain. If they have installed a propriety panel, then the new homeowner will have to go with them for monitoring, or reinstall the system. It is a very high return on investment.

When you set up an account with a central station, you can have something as simple as when we get an alarm we call you then the police, or something as complex as separate zones, sending SMS alerts or emails for less critical things (like low battery alerts), and having coded responses to questions so you can indicate you are under duress without coming out and saying it (like if you have a gun to your head).

When it comes to panels, you have several options. The basic panel has input contacts for several sensors, and operates over phone lines. You put them where the line comes in, so it can seize the line if it is in use when it needs to contact the central station. For the sensors, you can do heat, fire, smoke, gas, motion, infrared, contact, etc, the possibilities are endless. You can also do one sensor per contact, or make a loop (for example, do 1 circuit for all the smoke sensors on the first floor, and another for the second). If you need more contacts, you can get a bigger panel.

If you don't want to use the phone line, you upgrade the basic panel with another communications card... These would commonly be IP based or a GSM modem (you go with a gsm carrier like AT&T and drop in the SIM card). You can also use combinations of all of these, so you could primarily use the IP card, but fall back to phone if no Internet.

Whatever communications method you use, when a signal comes in to our equipment, it handshakes and our software creates an alarm (kind of Ike a trouble ticket) for the operator. That is when they match up whatever type of alarm it is with the various procedures on the account. Much of it is automated, but if it requires a phone all the software will of course need an operator to 'help'...

There are kits online now where the panel is a network-appliance like thing that you administer yourself, but these seem limited in their capabilities and use proprietary sensors, so your expansion and customization of it is limited. Your standard alarm panel will give you much more options, and is less likely (probably never) to fail over time like these network appliances... The circuitry in these panels are super beefy, designed for longevity and hardiness.

The signals these panels send are very specialized, and you need tens of thousands of dollars worth of hardware to receive them... It's not as simple as just having it dial into a modem listening on a computer and running scripts based off of the data.

In all honesty, the hardware installs are easy, it's programming the panel to do what it needs to that it a bit more work, so unless you have someone with experience to assist you, you may be better off going with a turnkey package for service and monitoring like described above. The one thing I would definitely recommend is to go with a local service company that installs their own stuff, versus a large national provider. Companies like ADT install proprietary hardware, so if you leave them everything is useless. Our local company installs the same stuff, but it isn't locked out, so you can reprogram it to contact a different central station if you decide to change providers for a better deal in the future.

[Duke{CLR}]

Natethebrewer, thanks for the long response. Does the quote listed seem like a fair price? I do know that the company they use is a local one which I kind of like but a free install would save me some cash. I'll look into the big companies and see what happens. The drywall could start late this week so whoever does has got to do it quickly.

[Duke{CLR}]

I haven't poked to hard into this but here is a specific DIY site for security systems in my state. :2thumbs:

$10 Vermont Alarm Monitoring Services & DIY Vermont Security Systems! (http://www.geoarm.com/vermont-security-systems-home-security-alarm-monitoring.html)

[NateTheBrewer]

I haven't poked to hard into this but here is a specific DIY site for security systems in my state. :2thumbs:

$10 Vermont Alarm Monitoring Services & DIY Vermont Security Systems! (http://www.geoarm.com/vermont-security-systems-home-security-alarm-monitoring.html)

I missed the original quote until now... The monitoring is a good deal, much closer to the wholesale cost of the central station monitoring. The actual hardware cost seems high, as we could get that stuff for a couple hundred... But I am sure much of this is to cover the labor cost of the Install and setup. Do you mind if I show this quote to our guy that deals with the service companies to see what he thinks? I will be able to go over it with him Monday or Tuesday if Monday is slammed. I can also ask him about the ease of programming the panels. It could very well be easier than I think - I deal with things on the receiving end - but he has set up quite a few of these for product testing and operator training.

[Duke{CLR}]

Feel free to share it.

[Dead...Again]

LOL I thought you were going to show us a picture of a 12G shotgun... :twisted:

[NateTheBrewer]

Ok, so it turns out, as long as you are familiar enough with electrical wiring and basic computer skills (programming simple panels), you should be fine... My so-worker basically said that if you are able to follow instructions and build a PC, etc. your skill level should be more than enough to program the panel. The rest is running the wires to all the various sensors.

Also, he marked up the quote you posted, and basically, if he were to purchase that stuff (not identical models but similar capabilities - you start with a kit that involves the panel, an IP card, and some basic sensors, then you get some add-ons) from one of our wholesalers, it would be around $500 dollars - so the other $900-$1000 dollars is basically their reselling profit on the hardware and install cost. I am not saying this is a bad thing, as they do need to make money and pay their people...

The monitoring is where he said it was reasonable - they would be charging you only a few bucks more than what we would charge a customer dealing with us directly... He did say that we would pick up an individual customer at a discounted cost, because for us its still more than we would be making on a per-customer basis when we have a batch of clients from an installer. If you are interested there, we can talk off-forum and I can put him in touch with you.

As for that DIY site you posted, it seems like they have good stuff - they have the standard Honeywell and GE units, and DSC, which is what we use in-house (both wireless and wired) - our certification requires us to have every closed space sensored, so we have 30+ sensors in our 3-story building. The nice thing about the wireless stuff is you can put the transceiver in a central location and wire it to the panel. FYI, the brand does not matter, as they all send industry-standard codes, and our receivers are designed to pick up all of them, so it shouldn't matter what system you get vs. what monitoring company you go with.

PM me if you want to talk more about this off the forum, I would be glad to answer anything I can, and find out the rest....

[Duke{CLR}]

Thanks for looking into it. I have to do insulation to save a bunch of money and I only have so much time so I will have theses guys come out and rough it in tomorrow, I dropped the low temp sensor and was able to get two black and white touch screens for just a few dollars more.

Thanks again.

BTW do you brew?

[NateTheBrewer]

Thanks for looking into it. I have to do insulation to save a bunch of money and I only have so much time so I will have theses guys come out and rough it in tomorrow, I dropped the low temp sensor and was able to get two black and white touch screens for just a few dollars more.

Thanks again.

BTW do you brew?

Yep, 15 gallon batches. Used to do all grain but went back to extract because it takes less time for the brew day... I plan to get back into the all grain after the wedding in the spring.

[Duke{CLR}]

Yep, 15 gallon batches. Used to do all grain but went back to extract because it takes less time for the brew day... I plan to get back into the all grain after the wedding in the spring.

I'm set up for 10 gallon all grain batches but I haven't brewed in a while due to my small house and a lack of an area to set up in. Soon i will have a brewing area and hope to get a nice setup.

[Dead...Again]

You should get one of these :D

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2011-06/personal-beer-brewery-spouts-pro-quality-suds-week

[Duke{CLR}]

Lol that's a cool little machine but I was looking at one of theses, It's also 1/2 the price. :cheers: