Hi, I need 26 door/windows sensors for my house… at around 40-50 bucks a piece, that’s not cheap. Any hint to where I can find some cheaper sensors?
Also, this is a new house we are building, so I can easily go the wired way for some doors/windows. But, this is also tricky because cable is also costly and time consuming to install… The house is almost 110 feet long and two storeys high (with some parts higher than 70 feets). So I guess wireless will be much easier. This is only for domotic. Alarm will be handle by a company.
If I were doing this from scratch, with “walls open”, I’d definitely use wired Alarm Sensors, running as regular Zones in the [supported] alarm panel… or minimally pulled to the same centralized location as the Alarm Panel.
The extra consideration is that you’ll want to put wire in many (many!) more places than you might if you were doing a pure-Alarm system.
eg. Closet doors for automated lighting when the Closet door is opened (presence)
eg. More Motion sensors, for automated lighting & audio when you enter a room (presence)
eg. Wires the top/bottom of stair cases, as well as doorless entryways (for eventual pressure pads)
eg. Is the Garage Door open, can I close it?
You can always come along and add the sensors later, but having the wire there will mean that you have somewhere to hook them up when you’re ready (keep a map!!). The Alarm Panel folks will probably think you’re nuts, but there’s definitely logic in putting it in whilst the walls are open (and getting a [supported] Alarm system that can support a large # of Zones)
When the walls are open, it’s not that much of an extra expense to get this stuff strung out. You’ll want to consider placement for internal/external Speakers, Cabling for internal/external Cameras, etc.
Note that some of the wireless Alarm systems have slow response to their Wireless zones. Using Wireless to handle something like Closet presence will get frustrating in these cases.
Thank you for the help and comments. I am still scratching my head at what is the best way to do everything. We are contracting everything by ourselves… And this is a lot of work. Talking to the Alarm guy last day, figured that wired is best… but we need a good plan. We are working on that. As you said, Guessed, they are thinking that I have loosed my mind, with all the cables running everywhere. I am still looking for cheap door sensor… I guess those do not exist!
If you mean a Z-Wave sensor, then the price range you mentioned is about what I’ve been paying for mine (Aeon, Everspring HSM02 and SM103). The wireless sensors for my alarm system were half that, which was a key reason in actually going that way. (We’re not using it as an alarm system right now.)
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