Looking to invest in a Fibaro system

[ukmark 0]

Hi folks,

Thank you to all who have contributed to this forum. My family is in the process of moving house and I am looking to install a new alarm system in our new home. I currently have a Texecom system installed which is not particularly intuitive in some respects and has caused me many headaches. However, when it is set up how I require, it has been 100% reliable. It is a wired system but I am exploring their wireless offering for the next house. It is not a home automation system but does allow for 12V outputs to be turned on and off with time or sensor events.

I came across Fibaro in my search of what else is available in the world and feel like I've come to the following conclusions on the Fibaro set of products:

1. I like the idea of the Fibaro system but it doesn't seem robust enough to rely on for security or fire alerting. Talks of dead nodes, the system freezing, erroneous sensor breaches, difficulty resetting and many others puts me off.

2. I have struggled to find general 'this is how Fibaro and Z-wave work' type of documentation which gives me the technical capabilities of the system and allows me to design my system. For example, it was quite by accident that I found that a fire sensor cannot cause all other fire alarm sounders to activate. Another example I found by accident is that only the permanently wired devices such as for light switches can act as mesh routers. I wonder what else I am missing and will cause me problems if I spend hundreds of pounds on the system.

3. Despite advertising itself as a security system as well as home automation, it just does not feel like that at all. There is no keypad and no external siren. I understand there are ways around this but interfacing with other devices through things like HTTP calls feels far to unreliable and I don't want to have to get my iPad out every time I want to arm / disarm.

If the above feels unreasonable, I would very much enjoy reading other people's responses as I would really like the Fibaro system and I suppose Z-Wave I general to be what I go for. However I simply cannot afford to put up with something that is not going to be 100% robust.

[dhanjel 7]

Best way is probably to use fibaro for home automation and integrate it with a larm system from another provider.

[morpheus75 77]

where are you based ukmark?

i run fibaro as home automation and i use it as my alarm system aswell. i have IP cameras wired in aswell.

i am an installer myself and i have external sirens, RFID keypads to turn alarm on/off and notifications on mobiles.

in terms of Dead Nodes, that only happens if there are z-wave signal issues but that can be eliminated depending on positioning of the controller and how many modules you have in your system.

contact me if you want to know anything specific

[akatar 208]

i agree with dhanjel

buy a real alarmsystem and use fibaro for homeautomation

use a aux (relais) on the alarm with a ubs, so fibaro know if alarm is on or off

(this is the way i do it)