New user building Z-Wave security system

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
#1

Hi All,
I’m new to both Z-Wave and Home Security. I just got a Vera Lite, a few door sensors, and a Z-Wave Siren/Strobe to start. I’ve also got a ZStick, Foscam PTZ camera, and Blue Iris on the way. My plan with the latter is to have Blue Iris events trigger a Z-Wave event via the ZStick.

I’m now trying to understand how to make a security system out of this stuff, and I have a number of questions. My first question is whether I can reasonably do everything with Z-Wave or whether I will need to integrate some non-Z-Wave alarm system components? I don’t want to use a monitoring service, so I don’t need that aspect, but I wonder about how to set up arming/disarming with just Z-Wave. What can I use as a keypad? What is used for feedback when arming and a door or window has been left open for instance? Do folks always arm/disarm via some web interface?

I guess that’s enough for initial questions – I hope to use this thread as I expand my understanding and my system. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

#2

Loosely speaking, you can assemble something resembling security monitoring using Z-Wave components… but it’ll never be built to the standards/specs of a real hardware-based alarm system.

It will require a set of scenes for day-to-day functionality (arming, intrusion detection, alarming etc). Physical keypads are not available for Z-Wave (yet), but a few here are doing this with keyfob devices so that may not be an issue, depending upon your circumstances.

If you’re going to have a small # of devices, it may be a reasonable way to go.

If you plan to expand over time, then it would be worthwhile looking at what it would take to use a more traditional Alarm Panel (with one of the integrations listed on http://code.mios.com) and either wired or wireless sensors to the various locations you want to monitor.

There’s some logical $$ point where it’s cheaper to go with a real Alarm Panel. In the US these things are dirt cheap, and some models have a plethora of choices for wired/wireless input sensors… many more choices than currently available with Z-Wave and often a lot cheaper than comparable models (like the embedded door sensors)

If you go with an Alarm Panel, there’s no need to have a monitoring contract. All of the components are usually purchasable online, and self-install isn’t that complex if you’re handy with a screwdriver, basic wiring and keypad-based install instructions. If, at a later date, you (or a future home-owner) wanted to have monitoring then it’s also easy to add.

In my case, my house came pre-wired, so the initial decision was a lot easier to make. Now that I’m adding stuff, I use the wireless sensors that are available since they’ll all show up in Vera anyhow.

#3

Thanks for your reply. Let’s assume I am not interested in hard-wired sensors that would be used with a traditional alarm panel (I’m unlikely to want to do the wiring work if it can be avoided). I guess alarm systems these days also use wireless sensors - is there any reason to believe they are more robust than the Z-Wave equivalents? If I went with an alarm panel with wireless sensors, would the Z-Wave sensors I just invested in be useless, or do these systems take input from the Z-Wave side?

I can actually see some advantage to using smart-phones to arm/disarm instead of a traditional keypad, so maybe I don’t need that aspect.

#4

Alarm system. Basic design is single purpose and well tested over numerous years, cheaper, longer range, battery life, lower running costs and the list go on. The security industry cant afford to not make very good products just because that is why you want one… Security. There are numerous post that will say the same. http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,10307.0.html .

You can use a smart phone for various aspects but you should also have a keypad. The keypad is in my mind essential equipment and as it is part of the system you can have some faith it will work when required .

#5

Not empirical evidence, but…

Alarm systems have had Wireless sensors for many years now. These tend to operate on lower frequencies (like 433Mhz) as compared to their Z-Wave counterparts (~900Mhz). Both are subject to interference, like @strangely and his Oregon Scientific weather unit vs others with Baby monitors

Alarm system components tend to be built to avoid callouts, since that’s costly for the vendor, and frustrating for the end-user. If we could get the #'s, I suspect we’d find that their [battery operated] Z-Wave counterparts haven’t had nearly as much mileage in this space - especially if they’re used for Automation more than Security.

I’ve used both the HSM-100 (“3 in 1”) Motion-Light-Temp as well as the HomePro ZIR-000 and, both failed my test of reliability (the HSM-100 was better, but still flakey). Others have successfully used the HSM-100’s, and some have gone as far as wiring them with a local Wall-Wart to avoid changing batteries.

For the few wireless Alarm sensors that I have, they’re built to a whole other standard of quality as compared to what I’ve seen in the Z-Wave space and, depending upon the brand, they’re often cheaper than their Z-Wave counterparts.

Also, for some of the Panels there’s a wide array of competing Sensor devices. I think people would love to see these come down for automation use (Z-Wave), and hopefully we’ll start to see that with some of the Alarm vendors moving into this space.

Overall, for the supported Alarm integrations, each system will operate independently. When Vera fails, the Alarm system will continue to monitor the devices. When Vera comes back up, it will discover the “current state” of the sensors and get them all in sync.

All these security and/or automation sensors tend to show up in Vera as the same type of device. From a Vera/Scripting standpoint, it won’t matter whether the MotionSensor is a Z-Wave one, or one synthesized by an Alarm System Plugin, they both look-and-feel the same.

That said, because the systems are independent, it may not be possible to have the Z-Wave sensor trip the actual Alarm Panel. Again, they’ll all look like motion sensors to Vera/MiOS but they often([sup]*[/sup]) cannot be exposed to the raw Alarm Panel/Board.

[sup]*[/sup] Some of the Panels support doing this, but the Plugins may not currently support it. My Panel has a “Virtual Input” capability, for example, and the DSC has something similar.

[quote=“Dolphran, post:3, topic:171694”]Thanks for your reply. Let’s assume I am not interested in hard-wired sensors that would be used with a traditional alarm panel (I’m unlikely to want to do the wiring work if it can be avoided). I guess alarm systems these days also use wireless sensors - is there any reason to believe they are more robust than the Z-Wave equivalents? If I went with an alarm panel with wireless sensors, would the Z-Wave sensors I just invested in be useless, or do these systems take input from the Z-Wave side?

I can actually see some advantage to using smart-phones to arm/disarm instead of a traditional keypad, so maybe I don’t need that aspect.[/quote]

#6

OK, so I’ve looked into the DSC alarm panel route. If I get a PC1832, a RFK5500 keypad that can communicate with wireless sensors, backup battery, and a Envisalink SD2 for remote access and interfacing with Vera, it will run a little over $300. I can then add wired ($4) or wireless ($30) door/window sensors instead of the $40 - $50 Z-Wave ones. It looks like beam sensors (which I was going to bridge to INSTEON with Vera to get) are reasonably priced too. There is more up-front cost than I was hoping for, but it would give me the reliability of an independent alarm system with full integration with Vera. I have to say I’m now wondering why I purchased the Vera at all since it was security functionality I was most interested in. Controlling lights from my cell phone is nice, but that wasn’t what motivated the purchase.

#7

Yeap, I think that combo is what I have as the test system. It ran about $280 when I bought it. It was also cheaper if I looked around a little.

I have a similar experience with boxes of ‘stuff’ trialled and dropped. In particular, my ZIR000 ZWave motion (~ $60) and my HSM100 (~ $85) are both now not used.

Sometimes this is just the price of experimentation, but you’re right about the entry cost being higher going this route… That’s why I mention there’s a breakeven point depending upon the number of sensors you have (and how much time/patience also)

One advantage in attaching the Vera is remote Zone status display,Arming and a mechanism to SMS/Email in addition to any local siren.

#8

So with the PC1832 and the EnvisaLink 2DS, can the Vera act as a Zone to the alarm system? If not, what system would I need to allow this?

One of my goals is to be able to bridge over from something like Blue Iris or Vitamin-D camera software running on my server (PC). When that software triggers an event (runs a script on the server), the server would talk to the Vera to trigger a scene, and the scene would trigger a zone in the alarm panel. And/or, as an alternative, the server code would talk to the 2DS and trigger an alarm directly. I willing to write some code to get this going, but I don’t have enough free time to reverse engineer anything. Anyone here doing this already?

The source of the event on the PC could be anything of course, but the important bits are:

  1. Triggering the scene on Vera from the network.
    I had thought I would need a Z-Wave interface (e.g. Z-Stick) on the PC to do this, but would prefer to talk to the Vera directly over TCP/IP. What I don’t want to do is go through MiCasaVerde to do it. I don’t know how the various smart phone applications work - do any of them have the ability to talk to Vera directly on the LAN instead of going through the internet and MCV? Where do I find info on how to do this?

  2. Triggering an alarm on the PC1832 via the EnvisaLink 2DS. Again here I don’t want WAN access to be required, I want this to work on the LAN even if internet access is down.

#9

Not sure if you can trigger an alarm via vera to the panel (never had to do that). But you can communicate with vera via MCV’s remote access tunnel’s (which you mentioned you do not want) or you can use local access as long as vera and the computer is on the same network. You would use Vera’s api’s to trigger a scene via an http request. Having a look at wiki.micasaverde.com will contain a lot of information. You may have to dig through the site to find what you want. If you have any questions on the api let me know as I am the developer of AutHomation for android that interfaces with Vera.

  • Garrett
#10

In theory, yes. I just need to validate.

The Plugin has a generic “[tt]SendCommand[/tt]” ACTION Defined. This can be used to send arbitrary commands that might not otherwise be exposed.

Now, there doesn’t appear to be a direct way to tell the Alarm Panel that a Zone is active, but with the above there are a few indirect ways to do it… by using those spare Wired zones on the board that you’re not planning to use.

The easiest approach, is to hijack one of the Panel’s onboard PGM’s (Relays). The 1832 has 2x and the 1864 has 4x. Wire it back to one of the Zones, and then we just need a command to “timed-trigger” the PGM Relay…

As it so happens, this is the user equivalent of pressing [tt]*71, *72, *73 or *74[/tt] on the keypad… and we can simulate that (with a 2DS) by using the equivalent of:

    sendCommand("071*71")

I’ll test this over the weekend, as it’d be handy for some other things.

#11

[quote=“guessed, post:10, topic:171694”]As it so happens, this is the user equivalent of pressing [tt]*71, *72, *73 or *74[/tt] on the keypad… and we can simulate that (with a 2DS) by using the equivalent of:

    sendCommand("071*71")

I’ll test this over the weekend, as it’d be handy for some other things.[/quote]

That’s great. This would also allow users to use Z-Wave sensors generally as triggers to the alarm panel.

Should further discussion of this stuff move to the Plugins area?

#12

[quote=“Dolphran, post:11, topic:171694”][quote=“guessed, post:10, topic:171694”]As it so happens, this is the user equivalent of pressing [tt]*71, *72, *73 or *74[/tt] on the keypad… and we can simulate that (with a 2DS) by using the equivalent of:

    sendCommand("071*71")

I’ll test this over the weekend, as it’d be handy for some other things.[/quote]

That’s great. This would also allow users to use Z-Wave sensors generally as triggers to the alarm panel.

Should further discussion of this stuff move to the Plugins area?[/quote]

Probably, but the next logical update will come from me over the weekend. I’ll add that to the Main DSC thread when I have the supporting data.

BTW: There are only 2 (or 4) of these built-in PGMs, so it’s not super expandable… It’s just the simplest entry, as no additional HW is needed. The other option is to attached a closed-contact/Relay device to the other Zone inputs, then drive it… all somewhat primative. My Alarm unit exposes a “Virtual Input” concept, over the HA interface, for doing exactly this type of integration.

BTW2: You can manually force a Fire/Ambulance/Panic alarm condition via the existing API, so technically those are additional inputs (as long as you’re not hooked up to a Monitoring service )

#13

It would be a good start if anything tripped by the Vera went to a single Zone from the alarm panel’s POV; so only one PGM would be needed. But of course multiple “Virtual Zones” would be nice. What is your Alarm unit that exposes Virtual Inputs? Can I assume you are implying that the 2DS can’t do this?

Sorry, but I’m not following this. What do you mean by manually? Existing API in the SD2 or the Vera? What does monitoring have to do with it?

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions - It will be a while before I have ascended to the knee of the learning curve.

#14

Mine is a Paradox Digiplex system (EVO is the more recent generation of it). It’s typically used for more commercial deployments, and it’s a bunch more expensive. It’s what came with the house, so it’s what I integrated.

[quote="guessed, post:12, topic:171694"]BTW2: You can manually force a Fire/Ambulance/Panic alarm condition via the existing API, so technically those are additional inputs (as long as you're not hooked up to a Monitoring service )[/quote] Sorry, but I'm not following this. What do you mean by manually? Existing API in the SD2 or the Vera? What does monitoring have to do with it?
The 2DS exposes an API to trigger the Fire, Ambo and Panic modes of the panel. These are specialized types of Alarm modes.. The DSC plugin exposes these also so you can script them (there's a flag that must be enabled first)

Typically, for a monitored panel, these are tied to get the police to come out, get an ambulance sent to the home (etc)… So not something you want to test if your home panel is connected to a central monitoring system 8)

#15

Ok, I tested it using an LED across the PGM on the DSC, and it works. The results of that testing are now in the main DSC thread:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,5154.msg76090.html#msg76090

#16

Thank you for all your help, guessed!

#17

So I took advantage of this weekend’s Fathers Day sale at HomeSecurityStore and got the DSC 1832 “ultimate” bundle and a 2DS.
Oh boy, so little free time and so much to learn. I assume that setting up 1832 is easier with a PC interface than using the keypad (I got the RPK5001 (fixed display) keypad, not the 5000). Do you folks know if running the DLS2002 software via the 2DS working yet?

#18

I setup my own home security system using Z-Wave and Tasker. I put together this guide to help others do the same thing…

Hope this helps!

#19

Thanks natekinkead. I recentely puchased the Z-Wave Advanced Home Control and Security System and apparentely the Kwikset door lock will arm and disarm the system when you lock or unlock the door set.
I have the vera app installed on my Android but I don’t want to use the phone every time I leave the home or I return. What if I have visitors or friends checking my house when I am away?
I am looking at the 2GIG Wireless Touch Screen Keypad to install it by the entrance door. I will also want to purchase the Linear Z-Wave Strobe Alarm Siren

#20

[quote=“callatis, post:19, topic:171694”]Thanks natekinkead. I recentely puchased the Z-Wave Advanced Home Control and Security System and apparentely the Kwikset door lock will arm and disarm the system when you lock or unlock the door set.
I have the vera app installed on my Android but I don’t want to use the phone every time I leave the home or I return. What if I have visitors or friends checking my house when I am away?
I am looking at the 2GIG Wireless Touch Screen Keypad to install it by the entrance door. I will also want to purchase the Linear Z-Wave Strobe Alarm Siren[/quote]

It doesn’t matter what lock you have. You can have the alarm arm and disarm when a certain code is entered. So if someone is checking on your house when they enter their code the alarm disables.