jelockwood

Whilst it is somewhat to be expected with the US being the source of much new technology that the US therefore would get access to newer/smarter products - specifically in this case security products before the UK/EU the sad reality is that even taking this in to account the UK/EU market is or has been woeful in comparison. This even applies when supposedly the same brand operates in both the US and the UK/EU e.g. Honeywell/Resideo and ADT. To some extent this difference is down to the UK insurance, security and alarm makers focussing totally on security and I am willing to accept being as a result better in this aspect than US products but they have in the UK not just treated features and easy of use as secondary but it seems have completely and utterly ignored this. As a result whilst touch screen panels are common in the US they are rare as hens teeth on UK systems, similarly integration with smart home systems is also far less common. Even newer so called smart alarm systems such as Verisure, Simplisafe, Boundary and Abode are in comparison relatively unfriendly and primitive systems compared to US offerings. (The fact that Verisure supports Arlo smart doorbells and cameras is not down to Verisure being suddenly open minded and collaborative and accepting the use of other brands of smart home products but is down to their buying the rights in Europe to the Arlo product range and hence even though it is the exact same product as before when it was treated by Verisure as a dangerous alien creature it is now treated as their best of friends.) I am aware that ADT US and ADT UK are in reality totally different companies and have in general totally different products although they do not make this obvious. I was therefore aware the ADT US had smart(er) offerings than ADT UK. However more recently I see that ADT UK have a new offering with a touch screen controller and do list support for some smart home products including Philips Hue, Nest Smart Thermostat, Danalock and what I can tell is a rebadged SkyBell Trim Plus smart doorbell. I can also tell that this ADT touch screen is actually a rebadged Quolsys IQ Panel 4. (Even though the ADT UK website incorrectly lists it as an IQ2.) This is therefore an interesting development. ADT UK are a well established brand with an installation and monitoring service. The Quolsys product range is also - at least in the US a well known brand with a lot of options and reasonable options for smart home integration. https://www.adt.co.uk/adt-smart-home-hub The ADT UK page does say it supports Zigbee and Zwave and as mentioned some well known smart home products. Knowing as I do that this is a rebadged Quolsys panel this suggests additional smart home possibilities maybe possible. However the ADT UK page is woefully lacking in details and the Quolsys UK page is not much better. Neither therefore make it clear which Zwave frequency the UK product uses. The list of Quolsys accessories on the UK site is also much smaller than the US site. This is not clear if this is down to technical issues although as Quolsys' own accessories would be presumed to use Quolsys' own 2G wireless technology and not Zwave or Zigbee I do not see why this should be so. Of a more particular interest one aspect of so called smart alarm systems is that they typically have only battery powered sensors and sirens. Whilst it is practical to swap batteries on indoor sensors as they can be easily reached, swapping the batteries on an external siren which is normally located high up a wall is definitely not, and of course if the battery dies no-one can hear it. (Even a Solar panel does not help as it is powering a battery which will eventually die.) Now, since I know that the ADT UK system is a rebadged Quolsys system, I also know that Quolsys have the option of a hybrid system with an accessory that allows connecting wired sensors and a wired siren! This accessory is not listed on the Quolsys UK page. ? I consider it a complete waste of time asking ADT UK. ? Is anyone here at all familiar with ADT UK and Quolsys and able to comment at all? I want to see if this https://qolsys.com/iq-hardwire-16/ can be used with the ADT UK/Quolsys UK version and if it can be obtained in the UK. It would also be helpful to have confirmation that 'standard' UK wired sensors would be compatible with it. Note: Quolsys in the US use Alarm.com for monitoring and indeed if you don't sign up for this the panel cannot even be self remotely monitored as the mobile phone app requires an Alarm.com account. I would guess either ADT UK are providing their own compatible service or more likely reselling the Alarm.com service. Note: Touch screens make configuration easier and look nicer, they can include a camera to take pictures of whoever is turning on/off the alarm and can show video from cameras and smart doorbells. What they could do and is often shown in fictional Films or TV shows is a plan view of a building and highlighting on the 'map' the location of which sensor has triggered the alarm. Sadly none appear to do this in real life (yet) although this has been achieved by tech enthusiasts using Home Assistant.

@Galaxy Guy I am not ready yet to take the plunge. But in the meantime if I may I will ask a few more questions. I got the impression that an alarm panel could support a number of wired and/or wireless sensors using the built-in board without needing a RIO and that a RIO was purely a way of expanding the capacity. Are you saying RIOs are compulsory? It makes it more expensive than I thought but not necessarily a blocker. Do the RIOs fit inside the panel box? Your Selfmon solution. I was intending to use the GX Remote app for self monitoring and looking at an integration solution both to add some non-Honeywell sensors e.g. smoke and leak and yes this approach would also mean it should be possible to use a smart home platform also to monitor the alarm system. Does your solution require giving access to your web server? Whilst I can see this does offer alert services etc. it means another avenue of Internet traffic that hypothetically could be attacked. I would also be wanting the MQTT aspect to operate purely internally on my network both again for security and to avoid issues due to any Internet connectivity issues. If I don't want or need alerts from your service and purely want the MQTT option and any hardware does this still require an ongoing subscription? (The equivalent competing products for the Honeywell Vista i.e. AlarmDecoder and Envisalink would not require subscriptions.

@Galaxy Guy I have not tried those links yet myself as I have not yet bought a panel. If you are writing your own solution I totally appreciate it has to be on your timescale and express my appreciation for your efforts. Will your solution eventually allow adding virtual zones received via MQTT? I would like to use non-Honeywell smoke and flood sensors but link them to the Honeywell. PS. I dislike npm as well.

I have scanned most of this thread but not all as it was taking excessively long to load in my browser. I am also interested in a Honeywell Galaxy for use in the UK and for some basic smart home integration. I am considering the Flex 50. In response to some comments I have seen here I have the following responses. The Konnected board effectively replaces the Honeywell panel and directly talks to the sensors so it does apparently work here in the UK. However it only works with wired sensors. I am under the impression that the Honeywell Galaxy Flex shares zones between wireless and wired sensors so a Flex 50 cannot do 50 wired sensors and additional wireless sensors. It can do 52 wired or 40 wireless not therefore a total of 92. Presumably the same applies for the Flex 20 which I agree is too small. The Envisalink does not officially support the Honeywell Galaxy only the Vista. Yes the Vista and Galaxy are different, as has been mentioned the use of balanced circuits is one example. However I am not convinced that alone would be sufficient to make using the Envisalink impossible to use so perhaps there are some other differences as well. The DSC PowerSeries can be obtained still in the UK but not via your average alarm supplier. It is the only UK available product officially supported by Envisalink and AlarmDecoder. The DSC Neo is not supported by the Envisalink or AlarmDecoder. I have seen mention on this very site of people managing to use a Honeywell Ethernet module with a Galaxy Panel and software to then make it available via MQTT. Using MQTT one could then link to various smart home systems. I have seen similar mention on the Home Assistant forum although zero details were provided. See https://community.home-assistant.io/t/uk-alarms-for-ha-recomentations/37932/34 See the following as possible starting points for possibly doing this ones self. https://github.com/dklemm/FlexSIA2MQTT As apparently the Honeywell Galaxy uses an RS485 serial bus and SIA signalling this should in theory be similar enough to other panels to exploit. However using the Honeywell Ethernet interface also should in theory be possible as after all the official Galaxy GX Remote Control App communicates and controls the alarm panel this way. So for that matter does Honeywell's WIN-PAK software. Going back to the differences between a Honeywell Vista and a Honeywell Galaxy. Again I wonder if this is as substantial as people are making out. After all the Honeywell Vista 6280 touchscreen is mostly similar to the Honeywell Galaxy Touch Centre Plus. https://www.security.honeywell.com/product-repository/6280w-6280s https://www.security.honeywell.com/uk/product-repository/galaxy-touchcenter-plus Yes the bezels are different, yes the 6280 has Z-Wave support but other than that the user interface, screen and LEDs are the same. It should be noted that the user interface of the GX Remote Control app is more like that of the Honeywell Vista 6290 touch screen. I hope that the Touch Centre Plus is therefore replaced by an equivalent of the 6290. https://www.security.honeywellhome.com/product-repository/6290w

I included the word 'smart' in the title although I remain to be convinced that there is such a beast, especially in the UK. I am willing to accept that many UK alarm brands e.g. Honeywell, Texecom, etc. deliver a reliable and secure alarm system. Likely much more so than many US alarm systems and modern Internet orientated home wireless systems such as Yale, Ring, etc. However I am looking for a system to discourage your average knuckle dragging crim rather than a sophisticated expert who can bypass anything. I am more interested in the basics, that it lend it self to a modern self monitoring smart home approach and that it not look so ugly that either I would have to cover it with a towel to avoid offending the eyes of my guests or to prefer being robbed rather than having to look at its sheer ugliness each time I enter or leave my home. I am therefore referring to the fact that pretty much every alarm system in the UK is still afflicted with 'ye olde' numeric keypad as its main user interface. Unbelievably almost all modern Internet orientated alarm systems like Ring, Verisure, Simplisafe, etc. etc. are all still afflicted with numeric keypads. Even when a maker tries to offer an LCD touch screen interface e.g. Honeywell TouchCenter or Satel Integra touch screen they still are embarrassing disappointments. Texecom only offer a numeric keypad and their 'shiny, shiny' Texecom Premier Elite keypad is one of the most visually offensive ones. The Honeywell Galaxy TouchCenter is particularly embarrassing. It apparently was launched as recently as December 2016 but when you look at its appearance and technology - 640x480 VGA resolution and hideous graphics you might think it was developed in the mid 80's! As a contrast and showing what can and should be done Honeywell have the 6290w touch panel for use with Honeywell Vista Panels in the US. The Honeywell GX app actually seems to give a user interface similar to the 6290w touch screen. As a stop-gap measure I am therefore considering the possibility of wall mounting a tablet dedicated to running this app. I would therefore like to see the following. It look acceptable and take advantage of modern technology to offer a LCD touchscreen with appropriate user interface like the Honeywell 6290w. It should recognise the growth of smart home systems and allow at least some level of integration These days one would logically expect that a system would take advantage of a touch screen user interface to both display a plan view of a house showing the locations of each sensor and which has been triggered and to make it easier to selectively enable/disable sensors and zones. It is something one seems to see often for many years in TV shows but sadly still apparently unavailable in real life. Am I right in thinking that currently there is still nothing like I describe in the UK? The Qolsys IQ Panel 2 also looks ok but I am guessing it is also US only. (It apparently uses PowerG wireless signalling - whatever that is.) With regards to the smart home side of things, I see no reason why the alarm sensors could not be safely read by a smart home system so that for example motion detected by a PIR even when the alarm is not 'armed' could be used to trigger activating lights. Indeed this is one of the common scenarios for a so called 'smart' alarm. However other things like linking to smart video door bells, smart door locks, smart Internet cameras, Nest Protect smoke sensors, and so on would be desirable. Whilst dedicated alarm company IP cameras, smoke sensors etc. all work they are generally grotesquely ugly, obscenely expensive and far dumber than smart home products.