Re: Alarm systems

[Kevin Hawkins <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I use an Ademco/Microtech/Honeywell  "Galaxy" system -
several other
names it's offered under. too. ( I think latest versions may now no
longer be called Galaxy)

It's  a great mature system used by many professional installers with
well priced extras available on eBay - including installer manuals etc.
Several models with differing zone capacities and wireless options etc.
Mine is a Galaxy 60.  Very powerful programming capabilities as the
product family is used in residential through to large commercial
installs.  I have wired inputs and outputs to this going into HomeVision
and a Netiom as well as a serial and Ethernet connection and it
satisfies almost all my HA needs as I have put together a xAP interface
to it.   Zone activations (PIR's etc) can be reported via 'linking' the
zones to outputs or via serial/Ethernet.   It may be 'awkward' to get
the full serial/Ethernet protocol but typically its not needed.  It
doesn't have any integrated  HA facilities persay beyond basic I/O  - ie
no C-Bus/X10 or programmable serial but my other HA controllers take
care of that.   I'm a great believer in each box serving a specific
purpose and doing that independently and well.  Hence not doubling an
alarm up as a HA system. Others may differ.

Main issue will be if you need a NACOSS install with maintenance as you
will likely be excluded from all programming access and maybe some
access via serial/Ethernet. You might have to relay/opto isolate inpust
and outputs.    This is going to be true on any system though.
Depending on your installer they may be happy with some extra facilities
though .

Comfort is another suggestion. I had one for a while ...  for me I
really don't like the speech interface or the panels programming
structure. The X10 interafce is OK but the C-Bus interface is rather
limted (and expensive)  - but then I would say that I guess ;-)

Kevin




David Guest wrote:
>
> What alarms are people currently using and are you interfacing to them
or just stand alone.
>
>