I was literally going to call them today to monitor my house's pre-existing ADT (DSC I think?) system out of practicality. Now, I'm not so sure.
Edit I wonder what modern solutions exist in this space for takeover of old systems. It feels like every alarm system installed is designed to extract your money for components for 3 years or so and then immediately become "discontinued." Most of the companies I see want me to buy a new system and lock into 3 years of monitoring. It wouldn't be so bad if the components weren't so damned expensive. $1k to fit out a small house, no smarthome nonsense even.
We just bought an old house that had been nicely taken cared for. There's an existing wired alarm system which must have taken a lot of work to install. I just installed my first server rack in the basement for network-attached storage and to run services locally, including Home Assistant [1]. I'm looking at Konnected [2], which makes an aftermarket alarm panel interface. I'd love to hear what else folks have done.
konnected.io looks fascinating. It seems to focus on wired systems, but I believe the system I own is just an "old" wireless system. I'll look for something similar for wireless systems. At least what I want seems possible!
Its been a few years since I looked. But yeah.. basically all the consumer and general commercial monitoring is centralized to be handled by ADT. Hardware is all from honeywell or a few others. Companies like frontpoint etc handle customer acquisition, support, Billing, and distribution. Most of the “apps” and alarm system configuration is also reskinned ADT.
There are a couple small companies that provide more access to your own hardware. You can use their centralized system to send yourself alerts etc. Having police/fire/medical dispatch gets back them paying ADT to process those alerts. If you want to start in this direction I was happy with suretyhome.com.
Edit: regarding consumer hardware its all either zigbee or z-wave these days. A DIY system (like with surety) is generally all compatible and Id ball park more like $3-400 for hardware. If you use one of the bigger players they use custom firmware & lock down the panel/sensor management to ensure you pay them a nice markup.
Originally I had a local electric company take over our security system's sensors - it seems like the sensors are mostly standardized hardware where the sensors just read open or closed to some central hardware box, and the actual monitoring is handled by some third party. Might be worth investigating.It would have been a factor of ~1k more expensive to go with ADT for us.
This works if you have one of the wired systems, which are common on systems installed while the house was being built. All of the sensors are pretty easy to hook up, and there's even a DIY kit available from this company https://konnected.io/ if you're into that sort of thing
However, my alarm was added well after the house was built, and they used wireless sensors so they wouldn't have to open up any walls. These all use a proprietary protocol, which probably could be reverse engineered by someone smarter than me, but no drop in solutions exist. I am in the process of replacing all of them with Z-wave sensors to use with home-assistant, but removing them means re-painting all of the window trim.
Yeah, they can install a cheap TrendNet PoE switch and a handful of cheap offbrand cameras, and charge you for them monthly into perpetuity. After that contract point to repay for the equipment, it's highly profitable, as it turns one time costs into a recurring fee.
