Security System

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
1

I recently installed Vera 2 in my vacation home. It is somewhat remote on a lake ant now my insurance company is insisting on me installing a fire and burglar alarm tied to a central monitoring company or they will not continue to insure my house. Have any of you run into this problem? I do have some motion detectors and door sensors connected to Vera but nothing that would monitor the smokes or connect it to a monitoring company. Can this be done using Vera?

2

If your required to connect to a monitoring company, I doubt you could do this with Vera directly. Personally, even if I could, I wouldn’t. I like Vera, but it’s not reliable enough for me to trust it as a burglar and/or fire alarm. There are panels you can integrate with Vera, however that will take some research to determine which to buy. I am waiting and hoping that someone writes a plugin for the DSC Alexor series of panels.

3

Couple of good, simple options for an easy central alarm service. Both wireless:
LifeShield - http://www.lifeshield.com/

  • super simple, inexpensive, good quality. No Z-wave, but all wireless.

2Gig Technologies - http://www.2gig.com/

  • same as above, has Z-wave built-in

My $0.015: An alarm system isn’t something that I would trust to Vera (or any other hybrid system, frankly). Alarms are purpose-built to do 1 thing: sound the alarm in response to fire, smoke, The Hamburgler…

.//A.

4

Hi Anthonyris -

A quick scan of the 2GIG library implied that their devices are zwave devices (they use much the same terminology, -probably a stretch). Can the devices like the PIR, Smoke Detectors be used without their control panel (and hooked directly to Vera)?

5

The devices that 2Gig are selling seem to be standard Z-wave devices. The Smoke Detector, for example, is the same one sold by Honeywell. I have no reason to believe that these will not work just fine with Vera (or any other Z-wave controller).

Note that I do not personally own one of their devices.

.//A.

[quote=“DonDiego, post:4, topic:167372”]Hi Anthonyris -

A quick scan of the 2GIG library implied that their devices are zwave devices (they use much the same terminology, -probably a stretch). Can the devices like the PIR, Smoke Detectors be used without their control panel (and hooked directly to Vera)?[/quote]