Various 312mhz sensors - looking for suggestions

M

mikei-ma

Active Member
I have a colleague that ran a business of remote monitoring and emergency management for seniors. He has a *ton* of sensors and host systems left over from his business.

We're trying to re-purpose them for either another business opportunity or frankly dump them. The units are all 300 -or- 312 -or- 315mhz wireless and meant to connect to single purpose gateways from various oem companies such as tunstall.

Here's an example of the flood detector, but the actual units we have are 312mhz.

He has: extreme temp, water/flood, co2, PIR's, pressure mats, scales, panic buttons, pull cords, and many more.

Can these units be used in the home or business for general purpose security? It looks like visonic makes a simple and enhanced access point that could connect to any panel.

Any thoughts on re-purposing these devices?
 
Honestly, I'd either put them up for sale on Ebay to see if anyone wants them for their intended purpose/OEM installation, otherwise, I can say I wouldn't spend the time trying to monkey it to work with another unit, just simply not worth it.

I can't say the units would work properly with the universal receivers, as usually the frequency is only part of the equation, you need to know the data stream format, etc.
 
I'm not sure if you had a chance to look at the links but it looks like the MCR-308 receiver takes care of all of the issues you are talking about, it's a supervised superheterodyne wireless receiver. Still think it's not worth it?


Essential Info

The MCR-308 is a superheterodyne receiver designed to convert a standard hard-wired control panel into a reliable fully supervised wireless system. It provides a cost-effective opportunity to realize all the benefits of Visonic wireless systems and devices.

The MCR-308 is compatible with all Visonic PowerCode[sup]™[/sup] and CodeSecure[sup]™[/sup] devices - including hand-held and portable units, window/door transmitters and a variety of detectors and other devices. The MCR-308 has 4 zones, each accommodating up to 4 transmitter devices. It is easily expanded using up to three MCX-8 zone expanders, for a total of 28 zones and 112 wireless devices in a single system. Dry contact outputs can be provided, using the RL-8 relay module that converts 8 open collector outputs to dry contact outputs.
 
I think if you can help pair the right receivers with the transmitters, you can probably offload a ton here. I know I'm just about to do the whole senior monitoring thing with my mother who has had a bad string of accidents over the last year but will be looking to do it on the cheap.

There are a lot of tinkerers here - but they need to know that the components are going to work together, and you're not just contributing to their already growing pile of stuff they haven't and may never install or get working... so if you lay out what works together and what you'll get, I think you have a sufficient market.
 
I looked at the receiver(s) and honestly, I think the same as I did before. I believe it's going to be a futile effort.

Frequency is one item, may be compatible, however you don't know how they transmit or what they transmit. Do they specifically transmit a hard coded ESN? Do they send a hard coded ESN and loop? How is the ESN encoded, hex or another format? How many bits is the data as it's sent? Is the data different on an alarm vs. restoral? Will the unit transmit an ESN for "learning" purposes or have compatible dipswitch settings for addressing?

I think that unless you have a large enough lab and test equipment to see how what you have transmits and works, it's not going to really be worth the time and effort unless you have a warehouse full of these items and there's a market that could justify the means.
 
Ok, now I understand your point. I was thinking about the sensor devices not the specialized endpoints. I was simply saying a flood detector or PIR combined with the MCR-308 will provide contact closure to a panel - as if it was hard wired.

While there is a market for the dial out emergency devices, it's not what I was planning on working with - unless folks wanted a kit. I do have all the engineering documents and software (installer and server) to talk to the senior monitoring products if we went that route.

So my first priority would be to sell off the sensors and secondarily see if folks wanted kits to monitor the senior market to add on to their security business.

Mike
 
I believe the PERS market already exists and has the suitable equipment, so from a liability standpoint, I can't see the pro route going for a homebrewed solution. I think the PERS market already has themselves and the hardware covered, so myself personally, I couldn't see adding a 3rd party homebrew product to a PERS installation where those devices exist via OEM. If installing to an existing security system, why not use the RF devices already out there and proven, again, not homebrewed.

Not trying to discourage, but there's far too many variables to make these devices function and connect to equipment they were never designed to function with, let alone the cost of doing such, and in the end is the result going to be cheaper or work as good as what's already out there?
 
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