There are many security specialists around, you don’t have to look hard or far, the problem is many of them don’t really have a clue what they are doing.
I was presented with this issue when I asked about the features and tweaks for an alarm system that would make my life a little easier. Being in IT I am always of the opinion that everything can be “connected”. My alarm system is no different. Its most frustrating to get that call just as you sit down to a meal in a restaurant, “Hi, you alarm has gone off, we are sending the armed response out”.
While that in itself is a form of reassurance I would in addition want to be able to see what zone caused the alarm and then reset the system remotely. In addition having online CCTV would be great, then you can see exactly what is happening.
When I asked these questions from the installer over 8 years ago I was looked at as if I was asking the impossible.
That is when my quest began and I looked up the alarm suppliers details and registered to become an installer. Since I have an electronics background all I needed was a course from the alarm supplier and coupled with my IT knowledge I was armed with all I needed.
The concept of an alarm system is not that complex, there are a few components that make up the system, in brief:
- Alarm panel – This is the system board, its the main box usually located somewhere secure and all “zones” or sensors connect to it.
- Keypad – This is the keypad and display for arming/disarming, many times confused with the “panel”
- Zones – This is each individual sensor, be it a door magnetic contact or a passive detector, many times confused with areas.
- Partitions or Areas – This is made up of a collection of “zones” or sensors, they can be grouped to function independently of each other.
- Magnetic Contacts – This is the small square block on a window or door that senses if it is open or closed.
- Indoor Passives – This is the white box installed at ceiling height in a room, it usually has a red glow when you walk past it.
- Outdoor Passives – These are bigger than the indoor passives, they function much in the same way but are weather proof.
- Outdoor beams – These are usually black and usually have two single beams that run between two units. They work much like the ding-dong things they had in shops many years ago.
- Expanders – A system board will only have 8 built in zones, thereafter you can add another 8 zones directly onto the system, adding more requires a network expander or two.
In terms of cost, the two main players are pretty much the same, yes there are cheap kits from China that will work, they usually don’t come with any support or warranty. Most systems are very scale-able, you can add zones depending on the main boards ability.
I have decided to stick to the Texecom brand, British design and manufacture and backed by local support it can do pretty much all you need it to.
As a standard I always suggest the 32 zone main board, you can start with the on board 8 zones and add expanders to accommodate more as you need. By default when you go with anything over 16 zones you need to go with a LCD keypad, this is preferable anyhow, it just makes it much easier.
As a necessity add on to the system you must get a network module, this will connect the system to your local network and with some configuration allow you to access the system via an app or your PC from anywhere. (provided you have ADSL or fibre)
I usually mix the zones on the system board, if you have door contacts and passives its a good idea to spread it over a few expanders, this way if one expander fails you don’t compromise an entire area.
Along with this configuration I create partitions or areas for convenience. If for example you have a perimeter of outdoor beams its a good idea to put these into a partition, you can then do things like create a bypass group or part arm the system to only arm the beams when you are at home.
Indoor passives come in two main types, normal infrared and then the anti-cloaking devices. Infrared detects heat differences in the air but criminals are wrapping themselves in bubble wrap, this fools the normal PIR detectors since they then cannot distinguish heat differences. The circumvent this we install anti-cloaking passives, these have microwave detectors that sense movement no matter what. Its good practice to put one or two of these in main areas.
Outdoor passives, I believe in only one make Takex, they are dual beam weatherproof passives that can cover 180 degrees and are very adjustable. Detection range is 12 meters either way so you can put them on a wall and it will cover a 24 meter area. Outdoor beams are useless, most criminals know to crawl under them.
The Texecom system has an app for iPhone and Android that will send you alerts on any alarm activation, from the app you can disarm, arm, bypass or even view CCTV cameras. The app will cater for 4 IP CCTV cameras, if this is all you need then its a very easy system to configure.
A word on CCTV, there are myriads of cheap system from China, they are not prefect but they work well enough, for residential requirements I would not buy any expensive systems.
I prefer using a system called Blue Iris, its the management system that and CCTV system would use. Many cheap systems you only make use of the console screen attached to the CCTV box. If it all you need to see then thats about where you stop.
If however you want to be able to remote view or receive alerts then Blue Iris is a million time a better than the embedded console or the supplied CMS software.
I recently discovered that Blue Iris works very well with the TVT CCTV systems, you literally can wire up the camera to the TVT box and then manage it all via a PC running Blue Iris. I run a Windows 7 mini PC with Blue Iris on it, the TVT DVR streams the video from the Cameras to the PC via the DVR. All control email alerts etc is done on the PC, the DVR is literally just a way to convert the analogue camera to IP.
