Alarm System - What would you choose?

[Glloyd77]

Hello all.  It didn't look like this topic has been discussed in a few years and given our ever changing technologies, I thought I would bring it up once more...

 

If you had your choice of equipment for your home alarm system what would you choose and why?  Looking for good integration to C4 of course.  The house is completely pre-wired for alarm contacts and panels.  May need some wireless additions from places that were not thought of during construction though.

 

Let me know your thoughts!

[Cyknight]

I think there's a post about every 3 or 6 months stating this hasn't been discussed in a few years.

 

"our ever changing techniologies" never seems to apply to security companies however.

 

You want it monitored? Ask whomever you want to minitor it if they use DSC, GE/Interlogix or Honeywell. Those three are probably the easiest to integrate PROVIDED you get the proper panel models (DSC: one that can connect an IT-100 module, GE: Concorde4 {not express}, Honeywell....not sure check what Houselogix has on their web site for what works with their module.

 

That's the 'easy' catagory for panels that integrate well. Doesn't mean they are the prettiest options/fanciest option out there - at least from a pure security system and devices perspective.

 

Personally? I'd probably go with ELK, seem to have the nicest devices out there still to date. Wish I could do them for clients but supply is locked down to one distributor and they can't guarantee stock locally.

 

Other than Houselogix making Honeywell easy to integrate vs being hell to integrate this is nothing new at all.

[alanchow]

I agree the ELK M1 panel is extremely nice. At recluse I wrote a driver for it that pretty much integrated the majority of functionality from the panel.

This is useful for things like outputs, inputs, knowing who armed/disarmed the area, temperature sensors, etc

Coming second worth be paradox for me due to the same reasons (not written by me though).

[Glloyd77]

Thank you for the input guys.  I will look into the ELK M1 panel.  Otherwise it sounds like an alarm panel is an alarm panel.  Not much to them which is why technology doesn't change much.  Friend who is installing recommended DSC for ease of integrating to Control4 but lets just say thus far things haven't exactly gone smoothly given previous items recommended.

 

Thanks.

[eggzlot]

I have a DSC Alarm.  After we realized my panel and keypads were too old (moved into a house with a system in place already and did not know the age) and we upgraded to 1 new keypad and a new panel, the IT-100 worked flawlessly with the C4 interface and so far I am happy.

[Cyknight]

Ah glad to hear that got all sorted.

Yeah Paradox would probably my second choice for a nice 'upscale' if you want security system too.

Beyond that part though any of the mentioned will likely get you what you need (not to get the 'best' of most of these systems a 3rd party driver/integration device is highly recommended).

[eggzlot]

Yeah Cyknight - I appreciated your help during that fiasco!  Turned out at least 1 of the keypads needed to be upgraded as well.  I had 3 older non alpha numeric and 1 older alpha numeric keypad but that was not enough, it would broadcast the zone names via the same menus but did not give the results needed.  Got a new keypad, added it to the system next to the panel and poof, it worked following the same exact steps.