The Mi Casa Verde seems great, but I’d like to install a Z-Wave alarm panel. Not an alarm panel that supports Z-Wave, but a ground-up Z-Wave alarm panel. Something that replaces all of the Alarm panels out there. I have maybe 30 wired sensors that I would simply like to convert to Z-wave - a real simple sensor-to-z-wave converter. I’ve been looking at Arduino and I could do a Serial-to-USB, but that requires I run cables. I’ve looked at Arduino, but there is very little Z-Wave stuff available. I want to convert 30 open/closed signals to a z-wave signal that can interact with MCV. Any ideas?
It is far more cheaper and reliable to replace your existing alarm panel with one that will integrate with Vera and work with your existing door / window senors. In order to convert your existing window / door sensors to work over z-wave will require you to purchase a z-wave developer kit which costs thousands of dollars. It is not practical to do what you want to do.
- Garrett
You will likely be a LOT happier by changing the panel to a DCS panel and integrating it via the LAN to Vera. And a whole lot cheaper.
I think just about everyone on the forum who has done the DSC to Vera integration including me would agree with the above sentiments.
We still live in a world where you have to bridge technologies frequently in order to get where you want to go, we may for a while still. The fitness-for-purpose of the individual technologies plus the quality of the sw/hw bridge are all key here.
I outlined in excruciating detail the steps I took to integrate a veralite and DSC alarm system: here. It includes what system components I bought, how I installed them and configured them. Hopefully should provide you an order of magnitude involved.
DSC => Envisalink 3 => Vera. Keep your wired sensors and suddenly you can automate off of them…
Not too expensive, very reliable, and you can still do traditional monitoring, if you are so inclined…
Other advantages of picking one of the Alarm System integration options:
[ul][li]you won’t need to reboot the alarm system every few days to keep it working[/li]
[li]you’ll be able to add solid, cost-effective, wireless sensors to those already not already cabled[/li]
[li]you won’t be debugging ZWave routing issues for your sensors[/li]
[li]for 30+ wired entry points, it’ll be cheaper[/li]
[li]when you sell the house, it’ll have an alarm system that’s very functional[/li]
[li]They’ll respond in O(1) time, no matter how many sensors, or how big your house is[/li]
[li]WAF will be higher, they’ll likely use it[/li][/ul]
Overall, my Alarm system is the most reliable component of my HA system. I push more functionality to it every day… 8)
I agree, get a nice DSC, an Envisalink and save your $ and your sanity!