Security System

Community Playground General Discussions
#1

I am new to Vera and only have a couple lights to play with right now.

Main purpose, in addition to the cool factor lol, was to develop a alarm system that is monitored by mine and my wife’s phone. Is it better to try to setup scenes for and use VERA as an alarm being armed and disarmed by scenes or buy a dedicated alarms system and integrate it somehow? Recommendations?

My goal is to be able to arm/disarm from our phones without a lot of trouble.

Are there alternate apps to use to communicate with Vera? The Mios one doesn’t seem to well-suited

#2

Without going into depth over the subject, there is already enough reading material in this forum, I think the greatest deterrent for using Vera as a bona-fide security system is Vera’s reliability.

I am not saying Vera is Un-Reliable, I mean to say that I am not 100% CONFIDENT in Vera’s reliability… and I think that for a security system, the user should be confident in the security systems reliability and I just do not think that Vera is there yet.

#3

I would - and certainly for security… :slight_smile: - and I’m speaking from experience …

Vera as a controller is (a jack or all trades and) configured to work with a multitude of different product and vendors etc. Whereas for a security system, I would feel much more comfortable knowing that all the pieces in play are specifically designed (and rigorously tested) to work together, to do a specialist/focused job.

Don’t get me wrong, Vera can be used in parrellel to do some nice cool things with sensors etcs - check out the security child boards and you’ll see that people have integrated their home security system allowing Vera to benefits from all the security sensors/monitor etc.

#4

I’ve read a bunch around here, but I am still confused.

My ultimate goal is to have my cameras viewable from Vera, and be able to arm/disarm alarm from same app.

Best i can tell, any z-wave alarm controller will do this? Is thisncorrect?

#5

I’m new to this as well. Yes, you can integrate cameras in Vera and yes, you can arm and disarm the alarm function all from vera mobile. If you are at high risk of break-ins, i would not self monitor (with Vera or any other system) but that is my opinion. Vera will notify you (if setup properly) when a sensor is tripped whether its armed or disarmed; the difference is it can do other things if it’s armed and a sensor is tripped, like also alert your neighbor so he/she can confront the burglar that is in your house (sarcastic; that would not be something you want to do).

So far i have set it up to verbally announce when a door sensor is tripped and it has been flawless so far (about 3 months) but would i trust it to be my main burglar alarm - no! It is my opinion that a serious alarm should have a backup battery and be monitored.

I use my (vera plus) mainly for the home automation functions and i will setup the alarm functions eventually just because they are there.

Oh! Check out Imperihome, much better GUI/user experience.