Comfort Security System

[Raymond <Reb.barnett@xxxxxxx>]

As requested, a reasonably brief review [but not brief enough to post it
yesterday when I said I would!] of my experience with the Comfort
security system:

The system as delivered consisted of the main Comfort CPU unit which
lives in a steel box, a Kompad (keypad with speaker, microphone and
status lights) and a doorphone (Kompad minus the lights and keypad).

The kompads look quite nice. They passed the ultimate acid test in that
my wife has given permission for them to be mounted in prominent
locations (unlike the programmable thermostat I fitted a while back
which was ordered out of sight, with the result it gets fooled by the
cooker and fire). My only criticism of them is that the microphone
points downwards and so far I've had a bit of trouble getting them to
pick up speech properly. This could be down to the fact they are not
properly wall mounted yet, and it is also apparently reasonably
difficult to set the gain properly when you listen to it in the same
room, due to the way it prevents feedback. On a similar note, the
intercom facility between Kompads is not properly two-way: you have to
press a button to alternate between speaking and listening. This is a
shame because if you the telephone to call a Kompad (or doorstation) you
do get proper two-way communications which work really well.

The extra components I ordered for the CPU (extra input/output zones and
telephone ringer) were supplied ready fitted. All that needed to be done
at a physical level was wire the various components together.

The system comes with a copious supply of manuals. These were clear,
well written, and comprehensive. Different manuals are targeted at
different audiences:
Installation: talks you through a sample installation including wiring
and programming
Training: attempts to demonstrate all possible areas of functionality of
the system by means of examples you can work through.
User: aimed at end users and talks you through how to use the Kompad to
set and use the alarm
Programming: provides a reference guide to the programming language

I've got as far as wiring up the system on my desk and proving that it
all works as expected. Wiring it together presented no difficulties. The
system is pre-programmed with a set of default responses (which are
mostly documented) which govern what happens when certain events fire.
If your requirement is for a straight alarm system then the standard
settings will probably do you fine. However there is nothing to stop you
from customising actions. Judging from the manual, the limiting factor
on what you can do with the system will be available memory (total of
127 responses of 5 actions each). I've customised some of the responses
which is extremely easy if you are just tweaking existing parameters
(for example the delay before the doorbell answerphone kicks in).

I've wired up a telephone to the system and this interface works
particularly well. The voice menu has a British accent which makes a
very pleasant change, you can adjust the speed of the menus and
interrupt them if you know what option you want. I had hoped to be able
to use the phone speeddials to automate some choices but this does not
work: the phone dials too quickly for Comfort - apparently a feature to
prevent someone pressing redial and disarming the system. It helps to
have a manual in front of you when you're navigating the menus for the
first few times, but once you know where you're going then it is dead
easy (e.g. 1 followed by 0 to 3 to arm the system to its various
levels). If you have a decent speakerphone then I reckon you could do
without a Kompad. So far as I've determined, a phone has only the
following shortcomings: you have to login with your 4 digit code each
time before you can do anything. When using your local phone it would be
nice to dispense with that for functions such as house automation,
reducing the number of keypresses needed to only one or two. Similarly,
you don't have any single key shortcuts: the kompads allow you to
programme shortcuts (e.g. press F5 to activate the intercom)

Shortcomings I've identified so far centre around just how programmable
you can make the system. The system advertises support for outputting IR
codes without needing any additional hardware other than an IR LED.
However I'm a little concerned by how many responses I'm going to use in
controlling my lights and heating, so I won't explore this option for a
while.


To summarise: so far I've only benchtested the alarm side of things, and
a couple of macros, which has all worked fine. I will be replacing my
old alarm system this weekend and so it's only then that I shall
properly start programming the system to switch lights etc. based on
occupancy. From all that I've seen so far I expect no problems (and I do
plan to be reasonably clever with the programmed behaviour). However
I'll post again in a week or two to say whether it passes the 'wife
test' of operation simplicity and usefulness...

Ray Barnett.

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