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Closing the loop: because of time pressure to get it done, I ended up installing a low power alarm system in parallel with my old wired system. That way there was at least minimum coverage that would continue if the power failed.

🤦‍♂️ Very good idea! My other thought that I had after the OP was to cut power to all the keypads, since those seem to be the biggest energy hogs in the system, and then power one on just in time to disarm the whole thing when I return. Not sure if that would actually work, but maybe. If it...

Right, but rather than roll my own solution, I'd rather install an off-the-shelf solution, if there is one. That's the reason why I posted the question.

Good question. Here's a scenario: let's say I go on a vacation for a month, and a bad guy cuts power to my house, knowing that typical batteries don't last all that long when it comes to powering a home alarm system. Once the battery goes dead and the alarm is out of action, he robs my house...

Is there a good quality low-power home alarm system? I'd like something that could run for up to a month on battery power alone and still function if the mains went out for whatever reason. If I assume an average draw of 1amp at 12v, then to cover 30 days I'd need a 720ah battery, which would...

As near as I can tell, it's a kind of grassroots alternative internet access strategy.  Out of goodwill you apparently install a LoRa TTN gateway and connect it to your internet.  Then anyone (?) within range (which can be fairly far, since it's LoRa) can connect their LoRa nodes with your...

As a "for-instance", I just now noticed you can send 5 megabytes of data per month over GSM to the Arduino IoT cloud for $1.50 per month using an Arduino SIM and $71 worth of one-time hardware: https://store.arduino.cc/usa/sim-bundle     That would average out to just under 2 bytes per second of...

  Yes, that's a given:  an alarm system can't prevent a break in.  Aside from deterrence, the best it can do is limit the length of time the bad guys are there by (hopefully) calling in the cavalry.   I think you've established that a more or less continuous stream of heartbeats may be the best...

  Larry, What kind do you have, if any?

Whoops.  Sorry.  I see that this topic has already been covered here:  http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/31499-moen-flo-smart-water-valve/?hl=%2Bmoen+%2Bflo#entry265397  I had mispelled moen as moan when I searched for it earlier.   Moderator: feel free to delete this post.     I first noticed...

Interesting read.  Thanks for that.  I had assumed that an electrician would have the skills needed to install a type 1 without needing the utility to cut power to the house.  I guess maybe not.  Surely there are ways to do it (evidence: grow-ops), but maybe it's hard to find an electrician who...

    If it were properly designed, the odds of that kind of attack working are close to nil.  It only takes milliseconds to send a packet.  Besides, you seem to assume that a burglar would have perfect knowledge of your system, when such a system is probably a rarity.  The kind of system a...

I suppose an alternative to the smash and crash system would be to relocate the alarm panel to somewhere less obvious, but leave a decoy in the master closet so that a burglar using a smash and crash attack would waste time destroying a fake rather than a real panel.  That would probably buy...

    Looks as though they also have type 1 rainproof enclosures, which I take to mean it could be wired on the "line side" between the power meter and the main panel. https://images.tradeservice.com/9ETBOIYK8205G6UU/ATTACHMENTS/DIR100154/INTMATE00901_108.pdf   Would that address your concern...

Any opinions about the effectiveness of this style of surge suppressor with replaceable parts?   https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SBC0LTE/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1    

  Well, at least to me, a smash and crash seems like a likely attack vector.  Why?  If the burglar fails in his smash and crash attempt, then he has x amount of time.  If he succeeds, though, then he has almost unlimited time.  So, if a burglar has made the decision to break in, why wouldn't the...

Is alarm.com the only one with the "smash and crash" offering?  That seems like a worthwhile feature to have.

It's all good.  The market for diehard home automation enthusiasts was never big enough by itself to get much done (without a lot of effort that is).  Just not enough money in it.  But if BB is devoting that kind of floor space to it, then whatever "it" is, there's enough money in it to make...

I'm still wondering what kind of technology Google bought for so much money when they purchased Nest.  It was some kind of learning software, but what exactly?  And will we be seeing more of it in the home automation arena, or did Google re-purpose it for something else, like their search...

Anyone here looked into using Tensorflow, or perhaps something like it, to augment their home automation?   https://www.tensorflow.org/