alarmdecoder.com

Some more questions -- I have read through everything on the AD Wiki & documentation by now so I hope I am not asking things already covered in the docs.

My basic use case is combined security / home automation. I will have multiple partitions set up on the Vista128BPT, some of them will be secured while others are disarmed. I have just 2000 sq ft house but I want tons of zones so I can have very fine sensor granularity, i.e. with 3 separate windows in a room I may configure those windows to be 3 separate zones for reporting purposes. The cat door flap sensor will be on its own zone, etc. I want to use the Vista128BP as a highly-reliable hardware platform for HA sensors AND for traditional home security.

Questions:
1) Will AlarmDecoder pass every single event that happens on any zone (wireless or hardwired) on the Vista128BP, regardless of zone & partition arming state? I.e. if Partition 1 is armed, and a door contact opens in Partition 2, I expect AD to pass the Door2 status change along.

2) It seems unlikely that the AD's current firmware supports the *entire* feature set of a commercial-grade alarm like the Vista128BP. For example, Honeywell's "VistaKEY" RFID panel / reader door access control hardware add-on. If I am correct, is there a way that I would, as a developer, be able to obtain direct read/write access to the RS232 bus so that I could attempt to reverse-engineer unsupported features, perhaps adding support for them by adding code to the AlarmDecoder OpenHAB binding?

3) For HA integration where there will be frequent communications from the 128BP --> AD --> OpenHAB (perhaps 80 or 90 zones, 15 to 20 of those will be motion sensors,) what would be the most reliable AD version to choose -- serial, USB, or the separate AD+Pi setup?

Thanks

globramma wrote:Some more questions -- I have read through everything on the AD Wiki & documentation by now so I hope I am not asking things already covered in the docs.

My basic use case is combined security / home automation. I will have multiple partitions set up on the Vista128BPT, some of them will be secured while others are disarmed. I have just 2000 sq ft house but I want tons of zones so I can have very fine sensor granularity, i.e. with 3 separate windows in a room I may configure those windows to be 3 separate zones for reporting purposes. The cat door flap sensor will be on its own zone, etc. I want to use the Vista128BP as a highly-reliable hardware platform for HA sensors AND for traditional home security.

Questions:
1) Will AlarmDecoder pass every single event that happens on any zone (wireless or hardwired) on the Vista128BP, regardless of zone & partition arming state? I.e. if Partition 1 is armed, and a door contact opens in Partition 2, I expect AD to pass the Door2 status change along.

2) It seems unlikely that the AD's current firmware supports the *entire* feature set of a commercial-grade alarm like the Vista128BP. For example, Honeywell's "VistaKEY" RFID panel / reader door access control hardware add-on. If I am correct, is there a way that I would, as a developer, be able to obtain direct read/write access to the RS232 bus so that I could attempt to reverse-engineer unsupported features, perhaps adding support for them by adding code to the AlarmDecoder OpenHAB binding?

3) For HA integration where there will be frequent communications from the 128BP --> AD --> OpenHAB (perhaps 80 or 90 zones, 15 to 20 of those will be motion sensors,) what would be the most reliable AD version to choose -- serial, USB, or the separate AD+Pi setup?

Thanks

1) Yes, AlarmDecoder sees all messages on the bus - you can filter them with the 'address mask' configuration option - there are limitations to hardwired zones reporting when armed but this is a panel limitation not a firmware limitation.
2) We have VistaKEY support firmware in the beta firmware I believe. Would require 2 alarmdecoder devices though - one on each bus.
3) All will be suitable for the job, our recommended setup is the Network Appliance and sharing via ser2sock, but unsure what OpenHAB supports - we did not architect the driver.

1) Yes, AlarmDecoder sees all messages on the bus - you can filter them with the 'address mask' configuration option - there are limitations to hardwired zones reporting when armed but this is a panel limitation not a firmware limitation.

Can you describe these limitations in more detail? They may be absolutely make-or-break in my application.

2) We have VistaKEY support firmware in the beta firmware I believe. Would require 2 alarmdecoder devices though - one on each bus.

That's interesting to hear about VIstaKEY support upcoming. What about RAW read / write access to the RS232 bus so that end-user developers can extend the functionality of the device for features and use-cases that are not and will never be supported in AD-provided firmware?

3) All will be suitable for the job, our recommended setup is the Network Appliance and sharing via ser2sock, but unsure what OpenHAB supports - we did not architect the driver.

I see that the Serial version is 19200 baud, the USB version is 11500 baud.

I like the serial version better because it has far more reliable physical connection that the USB connector, but the baud rate is a bit low, I would expect some noticeable latency at 19200 baud depending on the situation & amount of data in transit.

Is it possible to configure the firmware in the plain serial version of AD for a higher baud rate, say 57600 or higher?

I considered the WebSock/Pi/Network version, but Murphy's Law says to keep things as simple as possible. Having a Pi computer & OS is just another point of failure / security risk on the LAN, so I am inclined to go with a serial or USB version.

Thanks.

globramma wrote:

1) Yes, AlarmDecoder sees all messages on the bus - you can filter them with the 'address mask' configuration option - there are limitations to hardwired zones reporting when armed but this is a panel limitation not a firmware limitation.

Can you describe these limitations in more detail? They may be absolutely make-or-break in my application.

2) We have VistaKEY support firmware in the beta firmware I believe. Would require 2 alarmdecoder devices though - one on each bus.

That's interesting to hear about VIstaKEY support upcoming. What about RAW read / write access to the RS232 bus so that end-user developers can extend the functionality of the device for features and use-cases that are not and will never be supported in AD-provided firmware?

3) All will be suitable for the job, our recommended setup is the Network Appliance and sharing via ser2sock, but unsure what OpenHAB supports - we did not architect the driver.

I see that the Serial version is 19200 baud, the USB version is 11500 baud.

I like the serial version better because it has far more reliable physical connection that the USB connector, but the baud rate is a bit low, I would expect some noticeable latency at 19200 baud depending on the situation & amount of data in transit.

Is it possible to configure the firmware in the plain serial version of AD for a higher baud rate, say 57600 or higher?

I considered the WebSock/Pi/Network version, but Murphy's Law says to keep things as simple as possible. Having a Pi computer & OS is just another point of failure / security risk on the LAN, so I am inclined to go with a serial or USB version.

Thanks.

1) Some zones don't report their RESTORE state, just how ademco does things - zonetracking is fun because of that (Press * for Faults) thus the inclusion of zonetracking in the library etc.
2) You can already do that, nothing is stopping you from hooking up an rs232 device to your keypad bus as is.
3) Heard no issues in commercial application with regard to speed of serial device.

AlarmDecoder is open protocol, but closed firmware, so extending the capability of the device on the firmware side is locked to us.