I was wondering if anyone has looked at newer alarm panels that might be more friendly for home automation integration. I know we have a bunch of plugins for various alarm systems to interface with vera, but it seems like a lot of those have you getting this adapter or going about things in a roundabout way to communicate with the panel. So with home automation getting bigger and bigger by the day, are there some new choices out there?
I’ve been looking at some of the more standard choices, DSC, Elk, etc. Does anyone have any thoughts on how well these panels do their job. Elk is pretty pricey once you start getting all the needed accessories and modules. Plus it seems a little overkill as there’s a lot of features that overlap with Vera. DSC seems to be fairly reasonably priced if you shop around but doesn’t really have many more features than the Concord Express alarm system that was put into my house 13 years ago. Of course I really don’t need many more features than I currently have, but I do want to get better home automation integration.
Any thoughts?
Bruce