alarmdecoder.com

Hello. I am going to buy one of these products for my security system and am debating the ad2pi or ad2usb. Currently an older-model Raspberry Pi is rigged to look at the panel's alarm signal voltage and sends me alerts if the alarm actuates. The ad2* product is better because I can get remote messages and arm/disarm from a distance.

I also want to monitor temperature, a water tank level, and be notified of a power loss. I have the sensors for temp and water already. Should I buy the ad2pi or the ad2usb? I am worried that the ad2pi blocks easy access for using the SPI or I2C comms on the GPIO or other uses of the GPIO. But if the ad2usb + RasPi combination is more annoying to configure and use then I will just move the sensors to a different RasPi (I have a few). I want this thing to just work and be reliable.

Does the web app software notify me of power outages and/or arming/disarming?

Also (sorta off topic) does anyone have a good way to monitor for undesired water on the floor (like under the dishwasher or washing machine)? I haven't found a good sensor for that to detect a thin layer of water. I've considered a thin thermocouple wire since there should be a significant temperature event.

Thanks for any advice.

gokustar wrote:Hello. I am going to buy one of these products for my security system and am debating the ad2pi or ad2usb. Currently an older-model Raspberry Pi is rigged to look at the panel's alarm signal voltage and sends me alerts if the alarm actuates. The ad2* product is better because I can get remote messages and arm/disarm from a distance.

I also want to monitor temperature, a water tank level, and be notified of a power loss. I have the sensors for temp and water already. Should I buy the ad2pi or the ad2usb? I am worried that the ad2pi blocks easy access for using the SPI or I2C comms on the GPIO or other uses of the GPIO. But if the ad2usb + RasPi combination is more annoying to configure and use then I will just move the sensors to a different RasPi (I have a few). I want this thing to just work and be reliable.

Does the web app software notify me of power outages and/or arming/disarming?

Also (sorta off topic) does anyone have a good way to monitor for undesired water on the floor (like under the dishwasher or washing machine)? I haven't found a good sensor for that to detect a thin layer of water. I've considered a thin thermocouple wire since there should be a significant temperature event.

Thanks for any advice.

The AD2USB and AD2PI are functionally equivalent - in setup, you choose either ad2pi or ad2usb, and select the port the device is connected to. Should be very trivial either way. If you don't want to take the GPIO of the Raspberry Pi up with the AD2PI, then there is no reason you can't use AD2USB for the same functionality.

Yes, the webapp notifies you of power events, arming, disarming, zone faults, basically a laundry list of things you can choose to be notified about. Do note that you would want to run this on battery if you would like it to work through a power loss, just like your alarm does.

Thank you exactly what I needed to know!

Here is a small DIY circuit for a water leak detector, you could probably utilize it http://makezine.com/projects/make-28/wa ... -detector/

I asked myself this question too late. I have the ad2pi. It works great. The problem is that it blocks physical access to some things on the board. Gpio mainly. I wanted to add a z wave adapter but it would occupy the same connector as the ad2pi. Looking back I would go with the ad2usb solely because it doesn't physically block anything and you could use it on other non-pi computers.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the ad2pi though. It works great.