Re: SK8000 Home Security System

[Raymond <Reb.barnett@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Paul,

Sorry, I'm guilty of promising to write reports but never quite getting
around to it. Blame a busy few weeks at work (end of year processing for
all our systems which didn't go quite as smoothly as it ought to have)
and the fact that my Comfort project is likely to be ongoing for a few
months yet (which is good, not bad). I'll spend some time now not
advertising the system but saying what has worked well for me, and what
hasn't.

The summary is that Comfort is wonderful and does everything I want. To
put that into context I'll tell you what I wanted:

We had an alarm system left by the previous owners. It was ancient,
could be defeated by pulling it's 3-pin plug out of the wall, and had a
huge blind spot that would allow someone to walk in the back door and
steal the alarm, if they were so inclined. Consequently we didnt' have
much faith in it, so I wanted to replace it. The replacement had to be
capable of the following:
It had to let me wire in the sensors from the old alarm system, keeping
my cabling to a minimum.
It had to have a phone dialer, to alert me if it goes off.
At the time, I was getting interested in automation, so an X10 interface
was handy.
It needed to support either easily utilised outputs to a PC, or some on
board intelligence, to allow the system to control devices
intelligently.

Consequently I examined conventional alarms with a view to interfacing
them to a PC, home automation devices such as the SK8000, and almost at
last minute, Comfort. Comfort seemed ideal since it it was a
professional conventional alarm system that has been crossed with a home
automation controller. Additional plus points are that Comfort comes
with a very clever answerphone, allowing me to replace our hateful BT
device; it is British supplied (good from the support and 'will it work
here' factor, not mention patriotism); BABT approved so I had no worries
about whether it will work with the phone. The other advantage of
Comfort's alarm/automation integration is that the automation side of
things intrinsically has access to the status of the house - whether we
are in or out, and we only have to operate one interface to tell the
house that we are in or out.

Fitting Comfort was a breeze. The old box had a manual and all the wires
were labelled so it was simply a case of disconnecting and replacing one
box with another. All the existing sensors wired in fine. A point to
note is that Comfort supports something called double end of line
resistors on the sensors. What this means is that using just two wires
to a sensor (plus two for power) the system can detect whether someone
has opened the sensor's case (tamper), triggered the sensor, or cut or
shorted the sensor wire. To achieve this all you have to do is fit two
resistors in the sensor whilst you are wiring it up. It was very easy
and makes the system extremely secure. Wiring up the rest of the system
was equally easy and the manuals that come with Comfort are extremely
comprehensive and well written - the advantage of a well supported UK
product (ever bought a PC device from a far-east supplier?).

What took me a little longer was putting in the additional cables to
support more sensors, the Kompad and the phone line. Comfort prefers to
be wired in line with the phone line, and hence I had to run a cable
(cat5 with a spare for later ;-) ) from an upstairs bedroom down the
cupboard Comfort is in. Trickier than I thought. Two cores carry the
line down from the BT master socket to Comfort, and two back up to a new
master socket I installed (again very easy) from which all the phone
extensions run. This means Comfort can dial out to report alarms and you
can control Comfort from internal phones and by dialling in. A plus
point is that the doorbell can be configured to ring the internal phones
which instantly means you get a remote door chime (if you have a
cordless phone). Comfort also monitors the phone line voltage to detect
line cut, but our phone service doesn't seem too reliable since we've
had a couple of early morning wake-up calls thanks to this. Fortunately
you can turn off line monitoring.
I still haven't got around to connecting up the doorstation so I can't
say how well it works in practice...

Comfort can be programmed either by typing in numeric codes from the
Kompad or phone, or by using a computer package and downloading the
programming via serial type cable. So far I've only programmed using the
Kompad/phone which works fine, so long as you write down your programme
first (worksheet is provided) and think carefully about what the
programme will do. Late night programming with a beer (and wife whose
patience was running low) caused me to stick an infinite loop in a bit
of code that crashed Comfort. Fortunately you recover the situation by
pushing a reset button inside Comfort!

The programming language is very powerful and supports loops, parameters
and branching. The only thing it doesn't do that I'd like is some
support for variables: rather than hard code dim lights for 5 cycles,
dim for X cycles. It would make programming more efficient and make
thermostatic control a little more friendly (the user could then easily
change the set point). Comfort supports digital (12v) outputs, as well
as IR outputs (untried by me), as well as both 12v digital inputs (using
the standard alarm zone inputs) and 5v analogue inputs. I plan, though
I've yet to order the parts, to connect mains rated relays to some
outputs in order to automate some lights that don't require dimming
control (on the basis that a relay is somewhat cheaper than an X10
unit).

It's also worth remembering that just about every aspect of Comfort is
customisable. Parameters cover some things, such as number of dial out
retries, entry and exit delays. Zone behaviour is configurable (i.e.
whether it causes an instant alarm, alarm at night, alarm when away
etc). Zones can trigger programmes - for example we have ours set so
that when at night, and the alarm hasn't been triggered, movement on the
landing followed by movement in the hall disarms the system - maybe
slightly relaxed on total security, but it's handy when friends/family
stay over and they get up before you. Comfort has 15 or so different
alarm types (power fail, phone fail, intruder, entry, answerphone etc)
all of which are configurable as to whether they activate the siren,
strobe, trigger a dial out, play an alert tone etc.

The only real problems I've had have been with X10. This is still
ongoing so I can't say what the problem is and perhaps it's not fair to
mention it. The past week though the X10 control has been intermittent -
TW7223 not recieving commands from Comfort - come back later and it's
working fine again. Andrew at ISCAM has given me some things to check
though so I'm confident it'll be OK again soon.
The answerphone doesn't play quite loud enough on the Kompad relative to
the other announcements. Bizarre since call monitoring over the Kompad
is loud enough to wake me up, and the volume is fine over a local phone.
Answerphone messages aren't always clear (over compressed) when played
back over mobile phones but this is also something that Andrew is
helping with.
It would be nice if Comfort could read in CLI codes when people ring.
Most people don't leave a message on the answerphone but I'd still like
to know who they were (usually my Mum!).
My final criticism was to have been that Comfort only supports 128
programmes (of 6 steps), of which many are allocated to alarm
functionality. However Andrew tells me an upgrade is due imminently to
double memory, taking the system to 256 programmes. The good news is
that my system can be upgraded simply by swapping two chips over - if
only my PC was as easy.
This means though that I will be ordering the Windows package to assist
with programming the system, since I plan to add more features to the
automation side:

Wire the existing house thermostat into a Comfort input.
Wire the existing thermostat control via relay into boiler's
thermostat input.
Wire Comfort output via relay to replace boiler's time
controller.
Comfort supports time programmes so the heating will be set to
come on at the appropriate times, and switch off when we go out. Hot
water will only come on when movement is detected and stays on for
30mins after (pseudo hot water on demand system).
Additional lights controlled via X10.
Keyfob remote control to allow me to put the car in the garage
without triggering the alarm. The keyfob and reciever are available from
Maplin, run off 12v and have a 12v output, so wires straight into
Comfort.
Programme more scenes to control lighting (and maybe play with
the IR control). I might integrate this with either X10 switches in a
couple of rooms or a multi-channel RF remote. I've been trying to think
of a foolproof scheme for the system to work out which room we are in
and thus what lights should be set on. Can't think of how to do this
when more than one person is involved though - can you get IR sensors
that detect the presence of a person, and not movement (perhaps by
comparing the IR emissions of a target part of the room with the
emissions of a reference part of the room?).

I ought to do some work now, so I hope this helps. If I've missed
anything feel free to ask me. I can also recommend speaking to or
emailing Andrew Roberts at ISCAM (www.iscam.com) since he knows pretty
much all there is about Comfort. If you're looking for primarily an
alarm system that also does automation then I don't know of a better
product.




> -----Original Message-----
> From:	paul_gordon@xxxxxxx [SMTP:paul_gordon@xxxxxxx]
> Sent:	19 April 1999 22:44
> To:	REB.Barnett@xxxxxxx
> Subject:	[ukha_d] Re: SK8000 Home Security System
>
> Hi Ray,
>
> As I'm now getting pretty close to purchasing a security system (The
> Wife is urging me to get on with it - I'm just waiting for payday!!),
> I was wondering if you had anything further to report about your
> Comfort system?...
>
> I think I'm pretty much set on this system anyway, - I haven't seen
> anything else that looks nearly as good (and it's English!), and your
> first couple of reports have all been quite positive, so unless
> you've suddenly run into any "showstoppers" I reckon I'll be
ordering
> one at the end of the month...
>
> Thanks.
>
> Paul Gordon.
>
>
>
> >From: Raymond <Reb.barnett@xxxxxxx>
> >Reply-To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> >To: "'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'" <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
> >Subject: [ukha_d] Re: SK8000 Home Security System
> >Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 09:40:32 +0100
> >
> >You reminded me that I promised to write something of my
experiences
> >with the Comfort security system.
> >
> >The alarm itself works wonderfully, and if you have existing wired
> alarm
> >sensors then it's a breeze to install. What's been slowing me up
is
> the
> >fact that adding additional wiring to my decorated house without
> causing
> >too much damage is proving quite slow. However I have now got all
bar
> >two components fitted (unfortunately they're two quite fun
> components:
> >the door phone and the light sensor).
> >
> >To summarise: the alarm works wonderfully although the settings
for
> the
> >telephone dial out (dials out to tell you of alarm condition,
> >answerphone message etc) are a bit complex and took my a while to
get
> >setup well. The X10 control is fantastic since appropriate lights
now
> >come on and off depending upon whether we're in or not (subject to
> the
> >fact the system doesn't yet know whether it is light or dark).
> Probably
> >the acid test is that my wife is actively using the system and
> thinks it
> >works well. Of course, she might just be being nice given that she
> >doesn't have much choice since the lights now have no local
> control...
> >
> >I've a free weekend for a change so I'll write a more detailed
> account
> >and hopefully get it up on the web next week...
> >
> >Ray.
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From:	eddie@xxxxxxx
> >> [SMTP:eddie@xxxxxxx]
> >> Sent:	08 April 1999 21:52
> >> To:	REB.Barnett@xxxxxxx
> >> Subject:	[ukha_d] SK8000 Home Security System
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>    I'm in the market for a new security system following the
death
> of
> >> my old one. Since I've already put a toe in the X10 water  -
I was
> >> thinking about the SK8000 system that Laser sell. Does anyone
have
> any
> >> experience with this system? I'd appreciate any comments
anyone
> might
> >> have. Thanks
> >>
> >> ================================================
> >> Eddie McDowell <eddie@xxxxxxx>
> >> Gourock
> >> Scotland
> >>
> >>
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