In theory a Rasberry Pi built on the kitchen table could do the signalling to an Arc in the spare Rm...

There is few out there doing stuff like this in the wild, however I find it much more profitable to buy a product & use an ARC

Totally agree. There's a niche in the domestic market for those customers who want to self monitor their own systems and don't have specific insurance requirements. Pretty much the same brigade who used to use low cost PSTN based SMS service, but realise that it's not reliable enough. I'm in that market at the moment and am gaining customers and interested installers every week. One thing that I would say Steve, is that this area of the market requires your costs to be very low. The installers / users generally don't want to pay over £50 for the signalling equipment and want choice / flexibility with the level / format of signaling that they receive. I think that's probably why the big players in ATS wouldn't bother.

As far as the panel integration goes, I wouldn't say that it's a black art. It's more of a closed protocol thing. Can be done though.

Agreed, its not a black art. Its co-operation with the panel manufacturer and providing the support around the Telecoms/Panel integration. Its what my support guys do day in, day out. If we try and back off the support to the panel manufacturer, you've just left the guy on site as the man-in-the-middle.

We've been integrated to Galaxy panels since about 2004 and have a list as long of others (as your arm since). It's all about providing the right electrical interfaces and a seamless integration for extended format and UDL.

As far as the panel integration goes, I wouldn't say that it's a black art. It's more of a closed protocol thing. Can be done though.

Agreed, its not a black art. Its co-operation with the panel manufacturer and providing the support around the Telecoms/Panel integration.

Well is it or isn't it a black art?

Yep I get basic signalling is easy peasy. I've got a couple of units tagged to dial capture for CID SIA. But then I loose remote service and UDL. Manufacturer and most ARC aren't intrested and why would they be.

In my early days I played with a receiver at our office. I'm still paying for that mistake today and I took the thing OOService for the umpteenth time more than 5years back.

Yes, I've performed competitive analysis tear downs of various TCD's including WebWayOne. It's at the point where the TCD's have more processing power than the panels. Really, I can envisage a point in the future where the panel manufacturers become irrelevant. Either that or Honeywell just buy everything up to keep control.

Just out of interest, how large are the dishes on the aforementioned sat transcievers? i have a mental image of a 2.4m dish on the side of a house with a gsm whip tie wrapped to the lnb ( dual path) ...

Very interesting thread

Just out of interest, how large are the dishes on the aforementioned sat transcievers? i have a mental image of a 2.4m dish on the side of a house with a gsm whip tie wrapped to the lnb ( dual path) ...

2 inch diameter rubberised dome thingy. Has to be external with view of the sky though.