ELK Motion Sensors

[d00gster]

I apologies is this has been discussed before.

 

Looking into buying ELK M1 and add a bunch of motion sensors, leak detectors, co2 detectors and door locks.

 

Although the most obvious thing to do is to buy a bunch of GE/ Honeywell or ELK PIR sensors with the appropriate ELK module, those sensors are mono-functional, large and expensive. I have been looking at the aeotech multisensor gen2 and these bad boys offer more value and function. I thought of mixing both technology and have the old fashion sensors placed in few areas to cover my house at break in areas then place the zwave multi sensors in the rest of the house to offer presence, temp ... etc and also motion.

 

My ISY944 has a zwave module in it and I see that the ELK M1 also can get upgraded to support zwave. my questions are:

 

1. Would the the fact that both devices have zwave capabilities pose a challenge to me? could someone comment on any limitations in the elk module ?

 

2. If I go Zwave on ELK for the motion sensors, is there any known issues with detection signals getting delayed? I understand it's quite fast, but in contrast, I used insteon motion sensors and found that the wireless insteons took couple of seconds to start a scene. 

 

3. Is this approach good or are there any foreseen issues that can be challenging? 

 

4. do I lose flexibility if I place the sensors on ELK and use them within ISY? I want to use the temperature, vibration, light, UV and motion sensor in programs and variables.

 

5. are old fashion sensors better than zwave ones?

 

EDIT: came across this discussion and it seems my ask is not possible. http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/23028-elk-m1-and-zwave-sensors/

 

Thanks

DT

[giesen]

I haven't really looked at Z-Wave motion sensors, but if they're designed for occupancy use they won't be much good for security. The occupancy sensors are designed to be super sensitive, so that the action is triggered when it is. If it's a false positive, probably not a big deal. Security motion sensors have a number of features built into them to prevent false positives, as the consequences for nuisance trips are much higher in that application. By that token, they're not as good in an occupancy role.

 

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[d00gster]

I believe those are motion sensors, but what I meant was I wanted to use them to detect presence in a room and activate scenes and programs...

[MWareman]

If you want integrate the Elk into your ISY, all Elk sensors can be used by ISY to trigger programs. Therefore, they are not mono-functional.

 

I do *all* security sensors to my ISY and even some none-security ones. Nothing beats a wired supervised sensor on an Elk for reliability.

 

 

 

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[d00gster]

Thanks for the input, can you tell me which wired sensors you use?

[MWareman]

Thanks for the input, can you tell me which wired sensors you use?

I have door sensors (just embedded magnetic ones) in just about every internal and external door. For windows, I used Elk wireless sensors on all of them. For motion, I used Sure Action pulsars embedded into the frame of the home (I had the opportunity to do this during the construction of the home - I have 12 of them in various strategic locations) and I replaced the builder smokes with Elk smokes (I documented how things were piped during the construction making this retrofit easy).

 

The Elk module on ISY (along with the M1-XEP) allows all the Elk sensors to trigger automation events, and most of the interior doors are setup as non-alarm zones.

 

I don't do environmental sensors with Elk other than the smokes. Security is not required for temperature or humidity sensing. For these I use Aeon multi sensors bound to the ISY.

 

There are other sensors tied to my ISY, like CAO tags and a Brultech GEM and Dashbox for circuit level power monitoring.