New Texecom panel... or RaspBerry Pi?

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BiggerJim

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I have a Texecom R8+ system with Premier LCD keypad. I've been getting random tamper alarms despite putting a jumper across the circuit, so it seems it's time to get a new board.

While I'm happy with the existing wiring and keypad, i was wondering whether anyone had just repurposed something like an Arduino or Raspberry Pi with a relay board to do the job of the main panel. After all, it would be far more customizable, and already has things like wired and wireless internet built in.

Has anyone done this? I'm not sure how you'd integrate the Premier keypad. Any ideas?
 
No you haven’t ….a premier keypad does not work on an R8+…..you probably have a veritas excel keypad …
 
I'm sure you could.... but would any insurance company recognise/accept it?

In the event of a break-in would they refuse to pay out because its a not a manufactured panel?
 
AdrianUK said:
I'm sure you could.... but would any insurance company recognise/accept it?

In the event of a break-in would they refuse to pay out because its a not a manufactured panel?
Click to expand...
It wasn't installed/maintained by a recognised installer so I don't think that makes any difference to my cover/annual premium.
 
ISTR that there are already arduino programs out there for alarm circuits.
There are also versions with ample i/o that will enable you to use one as a main alarm.

Although it's probably a lot more faffing around than putting a dedicated alarm in.
 
Not impossible, but decent branded alarm panels include additional features that will take some time to develop. Devices such as the Pi are just not robust enough out of the box to hang on a wall and expect to run for 5 years without a hiccup. If you look at something like the Galaxy Dimension, it has additional hardware circuits for power and battery conditioning, along with a hardware watchdog to ensure that things such as cosmic events don't cause the CPU to hang. Then there's the firmware itself and that's a huge effort to develop and test to a level that will not have the neighbours driven crazy with sounders going off.

I develop firmware myself and would suggest that you install a decent branded system. If you want to play with a Pi or Arduino, hook it into the system so that you can leverage its robustness. Many systems have modules that support MQTT and this opens up a whole host of possibilities for integrating the alarm with things such as home automation.
 
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