Alarm System Integration Poll

Would alarm system integration in Roomie be of interest to you? If so, what kind?

[poll type=regular results=always chartType=bar]

• Elk M1 / DSC
• 2GIG EDGE
• IQ Panel 4 - Qolsys
• Honeywell Home (Resideo)
• Do not have an alarm
• Not interested in alarm support
• Other alarm system

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HomeKit alarm support would be phenomenal. (And would provide quite a bit of flexibility for power users who could spin up a RaspberryPi, Homebridge, and their alarm system plugin of choice to have it integrate with Roomie…)

Alarm.com would be great too given the variety of systems Alarm.com supports.

HomeKit alarm support

I could only find one existing instance of this, so its possible spread in the user base seems likely to be infinitesimal. The choices listed above are generally alarm systems that should have some reasonable penetration, and measuring the overlap of Roomie users with that penetration is a primary objective. Is there a brand/vendor that you think actually has penetration here?

Meanwhile, Alarm.com is basically at the wrong level. I'd like to target a local alarm integration if we proceeded with this. To go out to the cloud talking to Alarm.com would be very non-ideal. Better to work in parallel. They do their thing, we do ours. We should be talking directly to the alarm system. There really are not that many (relevant) systems out there. And it makes us resilient to cloud issues by going direct.

If it provides you any direction . . . I have an old Ademco Vista 15P panel. It's absolutely archaic, but it is rock solid and works. That said, I have been considering moving to an Elk since Elk offers a bridge to the fleet of Ademco wireless sensors I have installed. So, if you were to support Elk that would be something I would find valuable and a factor in moving forward with Elk. HTH.

Appreciate the reply, @Will_Price. You’re absolutely right re: HomeKit -- I doubt there is significant adoption of native HomeKit hardware with Roomie's user base. But like Alarm.com (and I hear you on it being at the wrong level), HomeKit could provide significant reach to a variety of manufacturer's systems for those willing to spin up a HomeBridge or similar tool. Of course, HomeBridge can be tricky and controls are quite simplistic in HK.

Another option to consider, interfacing with Alarm Decoder’s products for local control of DSC and Ademco/Honeywell/Resideo Vista systems. These Honeywell Vista and DSC systems are seemingly everywhere and their hardware / firmware is well tested and fairly bulletproof (IMHO). The same is true for Alarm Decoder’s products once set up, they just work and run without issue or user input. Hope this helps!

How about Nest? Possible for activity to pause and switch to Nest video on main display?

@chobo, that Alarm Decoder kit looks awesome. Thanks for sharing that. +1 for interfacing with this stuff. Much easier (and cheaper) path for me than moving to Elk.

Would be interesting to have Xfinity. My understanding is its basically a DCS.

I use a Ring alarm, door bell cam, and interior room cameras.

I'm a former Elan integrator and joined this forum expressly to add my response here. DSC and Ademco panels (and ELK) are still quite dominant in the home market. Just look the top integrations of Elan / Control4 to see these aren't going anywhere. The issue is that once these systems go in, they work and work quite solidly for years. DSC , Ademco, etc. all have open protocols and serial drivers (and most now have IP too) you can control the panel with.

The specific type of alarm system integration that would be most useful would depend on the individual user's needs and preferences. I like Honeywell home.