Anyone try their hand at this?
I basically don't want to pay for monitoring, but I'd like a little extra sense of security and I've read about simple camera systems that actually seem to be a decent value, DIY home automation systems, and even alarms based on motion or window/door sensors that can email/text you.
I'd like to do it all, but I don't know where to begin. Each of these seems to have a mountain of options with opinions flying around like a 1911/Glock debate over which is better and which systems have issues.
Here's my vision:
- A Linux box or Windows PC (or even an Android based device) in the house that does everything I need for control/alerting (via High-speed connection)
- Some basic security sensors and a brain/interface that talks to the PC and some basic sensors (glass-breakage, motion, and windows/doors)
- A decent camera system that records to that same Linux box (or network storage device attached to said Linux box)
- A little bit of home automation control over heat/air, maybe a few lights (I don't really want to be able to lock/unlock doors remotely)
- A web interface that I can access all of this through
Now, I've setup an Apache web server on a linux box before and done simple stuff like Perl scripts that parse text and a simple database and what not, but I never put something as important as my home's security/automation into something like that and I've had friends who missed a patch and paid for it by having someone remotely own their mail server (that was before the days of more convenient updates though).
Is anyone doing anything like this? If so, what combo of applications/sensors/controllers are you using? Is it worth just using 3 separate systems instead of trying to get it all in one?
I basically don't want to pay for monitoring, but I'd like a little extra sense of security and I've read about simple camera systems that actually seem to be a decent value, DIY home automation systems, and even alarms based on motion or window/door sensors that can email/text you.
I'd like to do it all, but I don't know where to begin. Each of these seems to have a mountain of options with opinions flying around like a 1911/Glock debate over which is better and which systems have issues.
Here's my vision:
- A Linux box or Windows PC (or even an Android based device) in the house that does everything I need for control/alerting (via High-speed connection)
- Some basic security sensors and a brain/interface that talks to the PC and some basic sensors (glass-breakage, motion, and windows/doors)
- A decent camera system that records to that same Linux box (or network storage device attached to said Linux box)
- A little bit of home automation control over heat/air, maybe a few lights (I don't really want to be able to lock/unlock doors remotely)
- A web interface that I can access all of this through
Now, I've setup an Apache web server on a linux box before and done simple stuff like Perl scripts that parse text and a simple database and what not, but I never put something as important as my home's security/automation into something like that and I've had friends who missed a patch and paid for it by having someone remotely own their mail server (that was before the days of more convenient updates though).
Is anyone doing anything like this? If so, what combo of applications/sensors/controllers are you using? Is it worth just using 3 separate systems instead of trying to get it all in one?