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I promised somebody here a while back, I'd write up a summary of a surveillance system. In the process of setting up a surveillance system, I cancelled my monthly alarm monitoring because they annoyed me (nice way of saying it, lol.) Then I was really rude to last person of a team that kept calling my cell phone trying to get me to come back to the monitoring. (about the tenth call wasting my cell phone minutes.) So I guess I annoyed them too, because they eventually disabled the panel remotely and the system wouldn't arm, then they blocked me from the online account. I have a $5 balance due because they 'claimed' I didn't call in time to cancel before the cycle restarted. (I say BS.) Going to make them waste some money by going to collections for $5. I'll pay it in my own time eventually by sending in the bill via postal service. Anyways, cameras first, then the alarm.
For the surveillance system, I got an 8 channel Digital Video Recorder (DVR). The DVR has two different formats or sizes for recording. CIF and D1. The difference between the two is like comparing a 5 inch portable TV, to a 14 inch TV screen. There is a video pixel size listing for the two formats but I'm too lazy to look it up. There is no way you're going to recognize anybody with the CIF unless they are within 5 FT of the camera, so consider a DVR that has D1 recording capability. The majority of the DVRs have that D1 capability, but there is a catch. Some of the DVRs will allow only a few channels at D1, but not <span style="font-style: italic">all</span> of those channels at 30 frames per second (fps). 30 fps is needed for video. At less than 30 fps, the D1 video you see is like a time lapse video. Say you have a door...If you're recording that door, the person might move out of the frame before you catch what they are doing. That is where the more expensive DVRs comes in. They can do D1 recording at 30 frames per second for each and every channel. Next is the camera resolution. At least 540 TV lines is needed. If you need to read license plates, it is going to cost you. 600TV lines is what I have now and it does not show the plates if the car is out of the focal range of the camera. You can tell what type of car, color in the daytime, and you can see the plates, but you can't read them. So if you need to read the plates you need an IP camera with at least 720p resolution, 1080p resolution is even better. Lookup youtube for IP Surveillance 1080p to see some astounding video clarity. The price will also astound you too unless you're getting wholesale prices.
Even eBay is pricey for those cameras. The majority of the systems allow you do remote viewing even if you don't have a static ip. They setup up their own Domain Server and you create an account. The domain name server is what converts a name to an IP address to find your system. I can't tell you how much you'll love this Domain service, plus the remote viewing until you actually use it. Just like we love our cell phones, you'll find yourself checking on your house at random times during the day. If you setup the system properly, you can get email messages with the snapshots of the motion. Like some lady doing something strange at the back door of the business. It appeared she was checking the door, but we couldn't tell. It will take some tweaking of the sensitivity to reduce the motion falsing which I haven't done yet. Next is hard drive size...get the biggest the unit will support and then some because you may find that the data is overwritten when you need it. Like trying to find the graffiti artists who I want to hang by 'dem fingers. A 500gb drive is about 12 days with 4 cameras at D1, 7 FPS, and 4 cameras at CIF, 30 FPS. Going to upgrade that unit to a 2TB drive for about $100. So that's the survellance in a nutshell. I can see now why the good systems cost money. ($1000+)
Now the alarm. Since the 'nice' people disabled the alarm remotely, I couldn't arm it to be a noisemaker. As soon as it was disabled, I was on the web looking for info. It seems much of the 'good' info was pulled for copyright violations and intellectual property violations. But as usual, you can find just about anything if you search enough. I had initially planned to reset and reuse the system, but in reading, many people had the same issue and it was easier and cheaper to replace the keypad and panel board with a new one. I replaced the B*inks/Aaaay-DEE-tee (can't use their name
) panel with one from Ademco. It's the same manufacturer that makes the branded panels. I have recently finished programming it and it works just as good, using the same sensors and switches as I had before on the windows and such. I've added a remote switch to turn off/on the unit and also added a tamper switch for the remote switch. Next is to add a few more sensors for additional items I want to monitor. Once I finish all that, I might connect it to a monitoring company that is cheaper at $10/ month compared to the $39 per month I was paying. So do the math. Initially just to get the system back to where I was, I paid ~$179 total for all the new parts and reused everything that was there, except the main alarm board, keypad and siren. I even pulled the receiver board of the old system and have it working on the new one. This receiver board is used for a keyfob I added to the system and can be used for more sensors that I will add. If you were doing this from scratch, add some $ for magnetic switches and alarm cable. My labor cost is not included in the price. That labor also includes the time to look up info, asking questions on the forums, reading the manuals, playing with the system. I'll recover the monetary cost fairly quickly. I'm contemplating toying with a PC at home to do monitoring. Time will tell if I do that because I have found that there are so many more options available to me than the cheap crap they install. That $99-$140 installation cost they charge, just about covers the labor for a 2hr install and it shows based on the retail pricing I've found for the parts. My cost will go up a bit when I start adding more sensors and stuff, but instead of just lights on the keypad now, I have an alpha keypad that tells me, FAULT - KITCHEN instead of 01 not ready in tiny letters. I can also customize the words if I want. If I use standard words from the built in libray, I can add a module to use my phone line to have the system tell me the status, or arm/disarm the system via phone. Not sure yet I'm going to do that, but you never know. The whole installation IMO was extremely simple to do so if you can read instructions and not afraid to experiment with the programming of the panel, you can do your own alarm. An example of the programming. Type in installer code 1234 and then 800. You're now in program mode. type *56 to get to the zone definitions using assistance menus. So from here you define each zone of the system. (Example kitchen) Then you tell it the type of zone, normally closed or normally open, how you want to report the zone code to the monitoring company, etc. You do this for every zone that you have. A zone is a combination of each sensor in a room. (example master bedroom that might have three windows, motion sensor, glass break sensor) I'll be changing some of the original zones around when I get time, but just wanted the noisemaker to work. I can also merge both the surveillance and alarm systems together by using the DVR alarm outputs to the alarm system. So roughly 1 week after they cancelled, I have a new system, with a few more options, and will function the same except for the monitoring service. That might come eventually or I might monitor it myself after I'm done tweaking the system. An added bonus...using my my cell phone and the camera system described above, I can now tell if somebody is on the property remotely, so not sure if I want to spend money per month for monitoring. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Edit: Forgot to add...I'll recover the cost even quicker if I disconnect my land line and use the DSL for the monitoring.
For the surveillance system, I got an 8 channel Digital Video Recorder (DVR). The DVR has two different formats or sizes for recording. CIF and D1. The difference between the two is like comparing a 5 inch portable TV, to a 14 inch TV screen. There is a video pixel size listing for the two formats but I'm too lazy to look it up. There is no way you're going to recognize anybody with the CIF unless they are within 5 FT of the camera, so consider a DVR that has D1 recording capability. The majority of the DVRs have that D1 capability, but there is a catch. Some of the DVRs will allow only a few channels at D1, but not <span style="font-style: italic">all</span> of those channels at 30 frames per second (fps). 30 fps is needed for video. At less than 30 fps, the D1 video you see is like a time lapse video. Say you have a door...If you're recording that door, the person might move out of the frame before you catch what they are doing. That is where the more expensive DVRs comes in. They can do D1 recording at 30 frames per second for each and every channel. Next is the camera resolution. At least 540 TV lines is needed. If you need to read license plates, it is going to cost you. 600TV lines is what I have now and it does not show the plates if the car is out of the focal range of the camera. You can tell what type of car, color in the daytime, and you can see the plates, but you can't read them. So if you need to read the plates you need an IP camera with at least 720p resolution, 1080p resolution is even better. Lookup youtube for IP Surveillance 1080p to see some astounding video clarity. The price will also astound you too unless you're getting wholesale prices.
Even eBay is pricey for those cameras. The majority of the systems allow you do remote viewing even if you don't have a static ip. They setup up their own Domain Server and you create an account. The domain name server is what converts a name to an IP address to find your system. I can't tell you how much you'll love this Domain service, plus the remote viewing until you actually use it. Just like we love our cell phones, you'll find yourself checking on your house at random times during the day. If you setup the system properly, you can get email messages with the snapshots of the motion. Like some lady doing something strange at the back door of the business. It appeared she was checking the door, but we couldn't tell. It will take some tweaking of the sensitivity to reduce the motion falsing which I haven't done yet. Next is hard drive size...get the biggest the unit will support and then some because you may find that the data is overwritten when you need it. Like trying to find the graffiti artists who I want to hang by 'dem fingers. A 500gb drive is about 12 days with 4 cameras at D1, 7 FPS, and 4 cameras at CIF, 30 FPS. Going to upgrade that unit to a 2TB drive for about $100. So that's the survellance in a nutshell. I can see now why the good systems cost money. ($1000+)Now the alarm. Since the 'nice' people disabled the alarm remotely, I couldn't arm it to be a noisemaker. As soon as it was disabled, I was on the web looking for info. It seems much of the 'good' info was pulled for copyright violations and intellectual property violations. But as usual, you can find just about anything if you search enough. I had initially planned to reset and reuse the system, but in reading, many people had the same issue and it was easier and cheaper to replace the keypad and panel board with a new one. I replaced the B*inks/Aaaay-DEE-tee (can't use their name
) panel with one from Ademco. It's the same manufacturer that makes the branded panels. I have recently finished programming it and it works just as good, using the same sensors and switches as I had before on the windows and such. I've added a remote switch to turn off/on the unit and also added a tamper switch for the remote switch. Next is to add a few more sensors for additional items I want to monitor. Once I finish all that, I might connect it to a monitoring company that is cheaper at $10/ month compared to the $39 per month I was paying. So do the math. Initially just to get the system back to where I was, I paid ~$179 total for all the new parts and reused everything that was there, except the main alarm board, keypad and siren. I even pulled the receiver board of the old system and have it working on the new one. This receiver board is used for a keyfob I added to the system and can be used for more sensors that I will add. If you were doing this from scratch, add some $ for magnetic switches and alarm cable. My labor cost is not included in the price. That labor also includes the time to look up info, asking questions on the forums, reading the manuals, playing with the system. I'll recover the monetary cost fairly quickly. I'm contemplating toying with a PC at home to do monitoring. Time will tell if I do that because I have found that there are so many more options available to me than the cheap crap they install. That $99-$140 installation cost they charge, just about covers the labor for a 2hr install and it shows based on the retail pricing I've found for the parts. My cost will go up a bit when I start adding more sensors and stuff, but instead of just lights on the keypad now, I have an alpha keypad that tells me, FAULT - KITCHEN instead of 01 not ready in tiny letters. I can also customize the words if I want. If I use standard words from the built in libray, I can add a module to use my phone line to have the system tell me the status, or arm/disarm the system via phone. Not sure yet I'm going to do that, but you never know. The whole installation IMO was extremely simple to do so if you can read instructions and not afraid to experiment with the programming of the panel, you can do your own alarm. An example of the programming. Type in installer code 1234 and then 800. You're now in program mode. type *56 to get to the zone definitions using assistance menus. So from here you define each zone of the system. (Example kitchen) Then you tell it the type of zone, normally closed or normally open, how you want to report the zone code to the monitoring company, etc. You do this for every zone that you have. A zone is a combination of each sensor in a room. (example master bedroom that might have three windows, motion sensor, glass break sensor) I'll be changing some of the original zones around when I get time, but just wanted the noisemaker to work. I can also merge both the surveillance and alarm systems together by using the DVR alarm outputs to the alarm system. So roughly 1 week after they cancelled, I have a new system, with a few more options, and will function the same except for the monitoring service. That might come eventually or I might monitor it myself after I'm done tweaking the system. An added bonus...using my my cell phone and the camera system described above, I can now tell if somebody is on the property remotely, so not sure if I want to spend money per month for monitoring. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Edit: Forgot to add...I'll recover the cost even quicker if I disconnect my land line and use the DSL for the monitoring.
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