New wireless alarm: Visonic, Pyronix, Texecom or ???

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wizbongre

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Folks, we’re moving house imminently and the new place will need a new alarm system installed. I will be doing this myself.

I last installed a Visonic Powermaster-30 in our current house which has been faultless, the only niggle being a very laggy mobile app, which needs a third party host as a proxy.

Requirements:
* All zones, sensors, keypads and sounders to be wireless (new house is G2 listed so can’t drill/run wires all over the place.)
* Not from one of the many consumer cloud alarm providers (Ring, Sky, Google, etc.)
* Available to purchase by non-trade (i.e. DIY.)
* IP / GSM based connectivity for monitoring, control, alerts, etc. (ideally without a dependency on a third party.)
* Ability to full/part arm with multiple groupings.
* Ideally, I’d like to connect up to Home Assistant too but this isn’t essential - a good mobile app for iOS will be good enough.

I’ve looked at Visonic again (33-EXP OR 360R) but am a little nervous they’re not still developing or even in business - their website is down and very few places seem to be selling the kit. The retailer I have purchased from in the past also seems to have website issues. Their online catalogue was last updated for 2020-2021.

Pyronix Enforcer is in the mix but appears old & outdated now.

That seems to leave Texecom.

Any others? Is Texecom the right choice or should I risk Visonic again knowing they are reliable and I understand them but they may not be around forever?!
 
You can find fault with any one of the systems, installed badly or your unlucky and there is a fault with the equipment.

WRT to apps and monitoring, are you wanting GSM, or GPRS for use with app? or GSM to do something different like text or voice.
Do you want a system with no fees, although if GPRS there will be fees for the data connection above and beyond app connection fees.

This will determine which system most probably, what other things would you like from it as that could rule some systems out.

Like Voice, something the Visonic panels did have.
 
For monitoring, I'm not bothered about text or voice - an app with push notifications/email via home broadband will suffice. My broadband will have failover with GSM to engineer out that problem.
I went for Visonic last time due to PIR's with cameras built in for internal coverage. Turns out the connection from home panel, through PowerManager provider, and back to the app on my mobile is too laggy to make it worthwhile. I'll keep the internal cameras as part of a seperate CCTV system in the new house.
Key features I want in an app:
* Real-time push notifications for arming/disarming, alerts, alarm states, battery monitoring, etc.
* Remote arm/disarm/part-arm/re-arm feature

I don't mind paying a fee to support 24/7 connectivity (I pay an annual subscription for the PowerManage feature for the current Visonic) as long as it has useful features (as above) and is performant.

I'm not bothered by Voice in any form. ~8years of the Visonic lady under my stairs telling me she's armed, disarmed, etc. and the novelty has worn off. (I know I can turn it off!)

Home Assitant integration will likely become increasingly important over time, however worst case I can build a bridge between switched outputs of the alarm panel and GPIO board to HA.
 
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