I have a house with a fairly sophisticated alarm system using the GE Interlogix Concord 4 system. In addition to the normal sensors, it is tied into a water sensor in the basement and other ‘discrete’ inputs. Rather than pay the $30-$40/month monitoring charge, I would like to interface it to a Particle to send text messages to my phone. ‘Basement water detected’, ‘smoke detected on second floor’ or ‘garage door open’.
Has anyone handled this sort of project and have any recommendations? Judging from the number of posts about the Concord 4, and complaints about the monitoring charges, I think this could be a worthwhile project - and one that would pay for itself in a few months.
I noticed a couple of threads out on the SmartThings site where several users are integrating the Concord 4. Looks like they found a few interfaces to use … and implemented some solutions using Arduino and Raspberry Pi. There might be some good parts that could be brought over to the Particle devices.
Are you using hard-wired sensors? And want to get rid of the Concord 4?
Thanks for the links @Humancell. I will read those.
No I would like to use the existing Concord 4 system to do all the monitoring and just send alerts to as a text message to our phones. Minimal changes to the existing system. (While it works!)
Long term maybe removing the Concord 4 motherboard from the box and replacing it with up to date Arduino/RPi and Particle components is an option. All the wiring is in copper - no wireless sensors.