Smart Alarm System Recommendations

[Frank Worrell]

Hi,
I'm new to the forum but having read numerous posts it looks like a friendly and helpful place, so was hoping you may be able to point a newbie in the right direction with an alarm replacement/ upgrade I'm planning.

Currently we have a Texecom Veritas 8 hard wired alarm system, with sensors on a separate zone in each room downstairs, with just one sensor upstairs on the landing. This has no free zones.

I want to move to something that is 'smart' so I can be alerted remotely and turn off alarms, when necessary. I would also like to have a sensor in all 5 bedrooms for when we are out, but again on separate zones so that I can detect what has triggered. I would also like to integrate with home automation so that I can potentially trigger smart lighting with the same PIRs (I know there are caveats).

Not bothered about Wi-Fi as I prefer having hard wired and not having to change batteries.
I also have a garage that has it's own alarm system currently, that would be nice to add to the overall system (I have a cable(s) back to the house).

I have been looking at the following as a natural progression:-

• Texecom premier Elite 24
• Texecom Premier 8 Zone External Expander Boxed 8XP - To give me the zones for every room and will likely be loft mounted for upstairs. Maybe an additional in the garage.
• Texecomm Connect Smartcom Ethernet
• New keypads

My main concern is that this system doesn't appear to be that 'smart', with the Ethernet module looking like it connects to older serial interfaces as a way of bringing some level of modern Internet capability. Is this worthy of consideration or should I be looking at something completely different?

I don't want to spend thousands, but I'd rather get something that is fit for purpose from the outset.

I work in the IT industry and studied Electrical/ Electronics so would be looking at self install, so anything that is tied down to partner configuration tooling wouldn't be of interest.

I really apprecaite any suggestions that may steer me in the right direction.
Many thanks

Frank

 

[sparkymarka]

Either you fit a professional alarm system that has some form of limited smart function that will be supported in the future or some here today gone tomorrow system that’s probably full of security back doors ….
The texecom is probably your best option or talk to galaxy guy as I believe he has some sort of smart interface for the galaxy alarm panels …

 

[GalaxyGuy]

For decent automation possibilities you'll want a system that has MQTT capability - this opens up the Comms interface with the panel.

Neither Texecom or Honeywell have this natively, but someone has written a software bridge for Texecom and SelfMon Ltd (my company) have designed a hardware virtualisation module that includes this for the Honeywell Galaxy range.

I've always opted for Galaxy, as I think the design is better and there's always low cost peripheral devices available cheap on eBay. That's just my opinion and some will be pro Texe for their own reasons. Many installers are switching to Orisec, over Texecom, but they are trade only and I've not seen any MQTT capability.

I think both Texe and Honeywell will drive their cloud based subscriptions going forward, but think that Texecom are further down the line with requiring an internet connection and account to their cloud. All Honeywell apps work direct without any cloud requirement, so there's no ties or being held to future monthly subs.

 

[Frank Worrell]

Many thanks both for the responses. I must admit I'm surprised there aren't more viable options in the space, thinking it was just my lack of industry knowledge and gaps in research.
I've seen the 'here today gone tomorrow' type systems, which mainly seem to be wi-fi and I did wonder about things like support and security as well as what the house insurance would make of them. At that point I was more inclined to build my own from scratch.

GalaxyGuy,
I presume this is your company with details around the module you mention:-
https://www.selfmon.uk/home

I've just requested to join the FB group so will take a closer look.

Are the subscription charges listed purely if the system is to be monitored by yourself, or are you acting as a 'cloud' like service requirement for the module?

Is this the original Texecom project this was derived from:-

https://www.mike-stirling.com/2016/06/bridging-texecoms-alarm-signalling-protocol-to-mqtt/

Once again, I really appreciate your responses.
Regards

 

[secureiam]

Orisec isn’t available in the UK for non alarm installers. As for integrations all systems have there own limitations.

unfortunately emerging systems seem to have a more integrated approach.

In my opinion established companies within alarm manufacturer have tweaked existing technology that’s been used for decades rather than redesigned based on more modern technology.

Third party integrations exist and there are threads /posts on here from some using them.

Home assistant and integration of Texecom Premier Elite seems popular.

Many people have given up on manufacturers of the alarm systems to provide the integrated solutions they promised many years ago.

Either you fit a professional alarm system that has some form of limited smart function that will be supported in the future or some here today gone tomorrow system that’s probably full of security back doors ….
The texecom is probably your best option or talk to galaxy guy as I believe he has some sort of smart interface for the galaxy alarm panels …

Probably not as straight forward as you were hoping for.

 

[Frank Worrell]

All,

In case it’s helpful for others I thought I’d update the thread with what I finally got round to doing.

So I bought the following:-

• 1X Texecom Premier Elite 48 Metal
• 3X Keypads (Upstairs, back door, garage)
• 1X 8XP Zone expander (Another to purchase for garage)
• 1X Connect Smartcom
• 1X Flasher board and USB cable

Have then deployed the following excellent Home Assistant integration to allow MQTT interaction with the panel:-

https://hub.docker.com/r/dchesterton/texecom2mqtt

So, I now have visibility in HA and then can trigger other events such as turning lights in the house on/ off based on PIR activation, using Node Red.

I have a long way to go with the integration as I’m relatively new to; HA, Node Red and MQTT as well as the Premier Elite itself, but so far it seems promising. As people alluded too this is far from perfect, but given what is available it seems to tick a lot of boxes, for me at least.

I’m also running the phone app and the Texecom cloud integration, with the former being a more usable interface for the missus.

Thanks again to all for the preliminary advice.

 

[GalaxyGuy]

Sounds good. Can't you just integrate the MQTT keypad into HA, then just secure HA and use that instead of crappy phone apps? That way you're not reliant on Texecom's cloud and will be free of any future subscription charges.

 

[Frank Worrell]

Hi GalaxyGuy,
yep it's early days and a bit of work to do, but I can already set and unset the system using HA. I need to spend a bit of time on the alerting from HA to send active notifications, but to be honest I haven't even had chance to test what happens on the HA phone app if there were to be an alarm.

Seems like there is significant potential though to exploit the integration, both on the phone and if I want to create custom HA dashboards for things like android tablets on the wall in various rooms, that may even displace the texecom keypads for day to day operation. If I did that right I suspect that will be much more 'missus' friendly.
Regards

 

[pcaouolte]

The Texecom App and HA don't play nicely together. The Texecom SmartCom has two connections available (it uses 2 ports on the alarm panel) one port is dedicated to the cloud connection and can't be used for anything else, the other port can be used to connect to HA or to send alarm notifications to the Texecom App.

If you leave the notifications to the Texecom App switched on while you have it connected to HA both fail as the panel tries to send data to both at the same time. Better (but more complicated) to use HA to send the alarm notifications to its own App and ignore the Texecom app altogether. This is more complicated because HA wont send any notifications by default, you need to write your own automation to react to every event which you want notifying about and send the appropriate notification to the phone.

Using HA keypads to set/unset the alarm works ok but if the alarm activates there is no reset button on the HA alarm keypad, so you still need a Texecom keypad to reset after alarm activation.

 

[brophy18]

Basically a wired alarm is just a Normally Closed/Open circuit. A “do it yourself” system can be easily achieved with a modern Ethernet IO board. It’s trivial to control these boards with a mobile phone. A simple stand alone alarm can ever be achieved with a single smartphone for example you can search the web for “Wired headphone Dialing Alarm” or look at graphtoweb.