Continuing the discussion from Ha02 - Getting started with a DSC Home Alarm:
Long-time viewer, first-time forum post! While my home does not currently have a Home Alarm installed, there are some wirings in various areas of my home from previous owners that I believe had an alarm system many years ago.
I happened to find that the manufacturer of the new Windows I am having installed offers the option to have Lock and Status “Sensors” built-in to the windows themselves. Would that be something that would work better to be integrated into a Home Alarm system such as the DSC PowerSeries? or is this something that would be better to just connect directly to HomeAssistant?
Marvin Lock Status Sensor
Marvin Lock Status Sensor Integration Instructions
I have found some posts on other forums of people that have purchased the windows with the feature included, but they have connected Z-Wave sensors directly to it, not a Home Alarm system.
Any thoughts on if this is something that would be worth the investment would be greatly appreciated!
It all depends on what you are going for. A dedicated alarms system should do its job well. That is not what Home Assistant’s purpose is and with the fact that it is under constant development/change, do you want to trust your and your family’s safety to that?
I use home assistant to control things but there there is always a physical control associated that I can turn on and off manually as well. I would suggest piping the information from your alarm system into HA but having the physical alarm box exist between the sensors and HA. That way if HA goes berserk, you can still interface a physical panel and vise versa.
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I intend to have a dedicated alarm/security system installed. Would directly having all of the windows hardwired to the control panel even be possible? or is it better to have wireless sensors with aux inputs used instead? The sensors that are built into the windows can detect open/close and also if the windows are locked.
You can do either. I am one of those people that prefers hardwire if it deals with security because signals can easily be jammed and snooped. you could setup something in HA that will alarm you when a sensor has not checked in over a certain period of time (dead batteries or tampering protection).
I am honestly not the right person to address this.