Security panel integration as HAI replacement

[dth930]

I am a long time HAI OmniPro user who has finally hit the end of the road with my failing and no-longer-supported system.  I am also a UD customer from the early days and currently have an Eisy that I use for some Insteon and other basic HA tasks.

I'm struggling to figure out the best course of action to replace my HAI system.

Some of the things I have integrated with the HAI that I would need to duplicate in the new system include X10 and Insteon dimmers, Omnistat thermostats, Somfy shades, Russound CAM.

I believe the closest thing to a true replacement would be the Elk M1 Gold.  I could retain most of my existing functionality but it feels like I'm buying into a technology and system that's similar vintage to the HAI I'm replacing.  I realize that Elk plans to continue supporting the M1 for the foreseeable future, but it still seems like it has a limited shelf life.  Of course, I could integrate the Elk with the Eisy to bridge the gap for any new integration protocols and requirements.

The security and home automation landscape has changed significantly since I installed the OmniPro.  At the time, there were no panels with IP interfaces.  But now maybe I should look at things differently.  Rather than trying to replace the hardware architecture that I currently have, would I be better off installing a more traditional and lower cost security panel and use something like Envisalink to integrate with Eisy?  Then I would have a modern and more capable platform to handle all HA tasks.  Of course, this assumes that I can get the Eisy to support the legacy RS232 devices that I currently have in-use.  I imagine I may need to replace the thermostats and possibly the Russound.  Besides more setup complexity, the only other downside to this approach that I can see is that I'll no longer be able to run HA routines and macros from the security panels.  Anything not triggered by security events will need to be initiated by the UD mobile or some other controller.

I'm sure others have faced a similar design decision.  Where did you end up?  Are there any other factors that I should be considering when planning a path forward?

 - Dave

[dth930]

Following up on a message from a few weeks ago.  I have a failing HAI OmniPro2 security/automation system.  Specifically, the network connectivity is failing.  It doesn't seem like there's a simple replacement option, so it looks like I'm going to keep it in place for security and augment it with an Eisy for anything networked that needs to be automated. 

That being said, I'd still like to be able to see and use the security events from the HAI to trigger actions on the Eisy.  I'd also like to be able to control the HAI from the Eisy.

Is there a way to interface with the HAI via RS232?  I didn't see anything in the nodeserver list, but I'm hoping someone may have done this before.

 - Dave

[Geddy]

22 hours ago, dth930 said:

Following up on a message from a few weeks ago

FYI - I merged the two posts to keep things orderly.

Also moved into the Polyglot area to perhaps get some attention from developers. Otherwise you could contact UD via their website "Contact Us" and see if they could put the request out to the developer community to see if anybody has experience with the system you're using to consider future plugin development.