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Posted: 12/20/2014 6:41:00 PM EDT
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What I need to cover:
Basement: 1900ish square feet, semi daylight, unfinished, 2 garage doors, one regular door to backyard, 3 windows facing backyard, semi open throughout. I primarily need to protect my gunsafe (a liberty presidential 50 that is bolted in) and my other paraphernalia and ammo down here. Main level: 1900ish square feet, glass front door, multiple large windows across front, 3 glass double French doors across back. There isn't anything particular to protect on this level other than whatever jewelry my wife doesn't have in the safe and a couple of hd weapons. We aren't big tech people and I don't think anyone really wants our 2005 plasma or our even older Bose 28 with mounted speakers. We primarily want coverage while we are at work - both for valuables and to protect our two small dogs. We also want door monitoring at night. Home automation might be nice in future but not something we need right now. I would prefer wireless so I can install myself but understand that has problems as well due to jammers. I also want to add camera monitoring to the exterior, basement and doors, but we can add those later on. I had looked at simplisafe and front point but don't really know anything and a lot of the supposed reviews seem like marketing. Thanks in advance. |
| I'll tell you I have used simplisafe for 8 months at one location. I liked it enough to use it at my house too. Simple to set up and manage. I get text messages when the system is armed/disarmed as well as when the power goes out. The door sensors are kinda bulky and conspicuous but they work. I ended up doing a bunch of motion sensors to cover the house while using the door sensors for inner rooms of interest. Fire alarm is a nice feature too. |
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I used a visonic powermax pro system before the motherboard fried. I now use a simplisafe, mainly because it was cheaper. I prefer the options in the professional systems and the level of customization. The simplisafe is definitely a "what you see is what you get" system. It is basic and works. Things I dislike about it are the cheap and overly large keyfobs, no back lighting on the keypad, and the window/door sensors can easily be popped off their back plate when opening blinds. The plastic they use also feels cheap compared to other systems.
It does the job, but I am a little spoiled by the level of control I had with the visonic. The complete simplisafe system with 13 sensors, smoke detector, panic button, motion detector, and external alarm (refurbished with 10% off) was cheaper than a new GSM powermax pro panel. |
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Quoted: I used a visonic powermax pro system before the motherboard fried. I now use a simplisafe, mainly because it was cheaper. I prefer the options in the professional systems and the level of customization. The simplisafe is definitely a "what you see is what you get" system. It is basic and works. Things I dislike about it are the cheap and overly large keyfobs, no back lighting on the keypad, and the window/door sensors can easily be popped off their back plate when opening blinds. The plastic they use also feels cheap compared to other systems. It does the job, but I am a little spoiled by the level of control I had with the visonic. The complete simplisafe system with 13 sensors, smoke detector, panic button, motion detector, and external alarm (refurbished with 10% off) was cheaper than a new GSM powermax pro panel. What happened to your powermax board? Mine just started giving weird ac power loss messages on wireless sensors. Afraid motherboard is on the way out. Awesome system though. Highly customizable and is my second system.
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I think Im going with a Honeywell 5200 TS setup. Used some of their access stuff before and it seems well done.
They also do Z wave integration so should be able to tie in some automation too. They all seem a bit clunky but I imagine huge refinements will be made this year as it continues to streamline and gain popularity |
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