Technology and Gadgets
$22 a month. That's $264 a year. That's how much I pay for the monitoring of my existing home alarm system. But we don't "arm" our system very often, because we have one of these:
I know, he doesn't look very intimidating - but at ~60 kgs., he's got a really deep, impressive bark. Walk up to our back gate at night sometime, and you'll hear it, that's for sure. And at night, you can't see that he's a fluffy cuddle bear - for all you know, he could be a Rottweiler, ready to rip your throat out.
But in actuality, there's probably only 2 weeks a year where we actually arm our system - now that works out to $132/week of monitoring while we are vacationing somewhere out of town. Being Scottish (i.e. cheap), I have long felt that this was too much money to be paying for services that we don't really use. We live in a pretty good neighbourhood, and we've never had a break-in attempt since we moved here in 2005. Besides, did you know that most alarm companies don't even call the police? Yes, the first thing they do if your alarm goes off, is they call people on your contact list.
If they reach someone, then they have the ability to request a police dispatch. Elapsed time for all this to occur? Probably 15 minutes - trust me, I've been the guy who got called when a friend's system got tripped. The perpetrator had loads of time to gather a few valuables and had slipped out the back long before the police and I arrived.
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| Old alarm panel (note missing common wire for zones 1-4) |
Enter Konnected. In truth, it's been a few years where I have thought about doing something about our alarm system. But each time I looked into it, there was some tech issue preventing me from moving further. A month ago, I saw something on TV, and when I searched for converting existing alarm systems to Wi-Fi monitoring, Konnected appeared at the top of the search. It looked pretty easy online, and I'm pretty handy with the DIY stuff, if I do say so myself. After ensuring my system could be replaced (virtually any wired alarm system can), a bit of Googling and research, I bit the bullet, and ordered the Konnected panel. I also ordered the Samsung SmartThings hub, as it seemed to be easy to set up, per the instructional videos.
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| Konnected board installed (with much simpler wiring!) |
Setup was mostly as Nate describes in the installation video. But one hitch for me, was that my old alarm system installer used a common ground with four of my wired devices. Not a huge issue, except that my siren/speaker is one of those four devices, along with a motion sensor. See, the motion sensor needs aux power, and therefore must share the common ground with the siren. But for the Konnected siren circuit, they have adopted an unconventional, reverse voltage state deployment. i.e. There is +12v on the negative pole of the alarm terminal in the siren off state; when triggered to on, the pole goes to 0v, thereby sounding the siren. My fix for this was to remove and re-install the siren in a new location, allowing me to re-wire with two conductors, and connecting to the Konnected board as instructed. The problem then, was that my siren was just a dumb speaker, so I had to order an actual siren, as the speaker needs a siren driver. With a small jumper wire bridging the zone 1-2 common to the one for zone 3-4, all of my sensors are working properly. I added a SmartThings wireless sensor for my garage door, as it was not part of my old system. Another thing I added, is a leak sensor, which is a good idea if you have your own hot water tank. Now using the SmartThings hub and the associated iOS, I can monitor and control my security system anywhere!
Total costs were as follows:
- Konnected panel kit $89 USD
- Samsung SmartThings hub $80
- Honeywell siren $30
- SmartThings wireless contact sensor $24
- SmartThings water leak sensor $24
- Ikea Tradfri Zigbee repeater $10
I found that removing the old system (incl. the metal housing), attaching a plywood panel, and labelling and cleaning up the wiring took the majority of the time. I followed the step-by-step instructions on the
Konnected.io site exactly, and had no surprises (except the siren issue, which was specific to my wiring). So for about the same as a year's worth of alarm monitoring, I have a new, smart-home monitoring solution!
