another newbie, what to do with this Brinks alarm system?

Todd.

I see you had just posted your question a little over an hour ago and wanted to be the first to respond. It may be my lucky day....................................or not.

I will let others reply with all the insight that they can muster. The subject of your question has been a recent discussion and I am sure you will get more that what you need to make a decision. I just wanted to congratulate you on bringing your concerns or questions here.

Have a great weekend.

Les

One of the people who posts here has copied the original FAQ for the newsgroup to his private website but he doesn't represent anyone here. There is no official organisation.

Brinks uses a proprietary system which is not compatible with anyone else's hardware. They lease the systems to homeowners. Although there have been comments to the affect that they will sell the system outright, they will not support it unless you pay the monthly fee.

It's mostly trash unless you pay for Brinks' service.

Basically you throw out the alarm panel and the keypads and buy something else you can install your self. Everything else should be reusable although you might have to look for buried resistors if they put them at the end of the line and remove them.

Ha! I wouldn't worry too much about resistors in the field... ;-)

EOLR's are used to supervise the alarm loop. With a preset resistance on the loop the panel is monitoring the current in the circuit, now it can detect open, close, and partial short -- as well as tampering with the circuit between the control and device.

Most residential installers disable EOL supervision in programming and just go for a open/close, that or put the EOLR in the panel which completely negates the whole purpose of the EOLR in the first place.

Think about knocking out a brick under a window and putting hemostats on the wire, BEFORE it reaches the contact and you'll see why EOLR's are useful.

Cool--this is sort of what I envisioned. I did see in the alarm panel a small pack of resistors just kinda sitting there hanging -- as though it was something they used as piece parts for whatever reason.

When you say end of the line, you mean on the sensor end of the line? And at the risk of asking what may be a FAQ, what purpose do these resistors serve to the Brinks system? (I'm new to the security system hacking realm, but have a strong background in electronics, for whatever that's worth).

Thanks to all who've responded!

Best Regards,

-- Todd H.

Ahhh. Gotcha. A third logic state if you will. Makes a lot of sense.

Oy. Oh man.

Absolutely. Easy way to disable the sensor.

Thanks for the education.

-- Todd H.

Brinks only uses EOL's for fire and heat sensors. The keypad and panel are worthless to the OP. FWIW, Brinks charges $26.99 per month on system takeovers ($31.99 with warranty) and offers a 1 year contract so don't get all warm and fuzzy feeling this guy is spending a dime to protect his home. All of the Brinks negatives aside look at what this guy is saying. He lives in a nice neighborhood, so the house wasn't cheap, he's having a hard time justifying $27 a month for family safety, and he's making the world aware of this on his $1000.00 computer which accesses the internet for probably $25 a month. Talk about having f***ed up priorities.

Crash Gord> Basically you throw out the alarm panel and the keypads and buy something

Yeah, instead he should pay you $40/month, and a what.. $500 activation fee. So you can slap a Vista 10P in and he can sleep better at night knowing he PAID for security? All the while you laugh your way to the bank and probably back-charge the installer for something you didn't like.

to his private website but he doesn't represent

hardware. They lease the systems to homeowners.

outright, they will not support it unless you pay the

A burglar alarm does not guarantee a family's safety. That's a terrible perception that depends on the public's misinformed ideas about how residential burglar alarm systems work and the effectiveness of police agencies that usually despise the alarm companies who waste police resources with a 90% false alarm rate. Your not protecting your family with a $30 a month burglar alarm system. All you're doing is giving yourself a false sense of security. Almost all residential alarm signals are false alarms. The vast majority of alarm company generated police dispatches are for false alarms. Alarm calls receive the lowest police dispatch priority. Some jurisdictions have stopped responding to alarm signals at all. Others charge a permitting fee and a steep false alarm penalty. You can debate the reasons for this and who's fault it is, but the fact remains, this industry depends on a misguided public perception of mysterious, circling 1's and 0's that protect families with magical powers and instantaneous response from concerned law enforcement. This is what is shown on television commercials and what the alarm salesmen tell the unsuspecting public.

The good news is that there is pressure on the industry to fix this. There are emerging technologies such as video analytics that could replace traditional security systems with much more reliable technology. The false alarm penalties and third party alarm response laws will force the trunkslammers and zero down marketers to rethink their strategies. My guess is that we'll see the most radical shift that we've ever experiences in this industry within the next 5 to 10 years. With IT companies like IBM and Cisco wanted part of the security integration market, it's just a matter of time before someone comes alaong and does it better that what we have right now. It's already started in the high end goverment/ industrial markets.

J.

On 3 Nov 2006 15:06:36 -0800, "Everywhere Man" wrote: .

Yes, but only if each window is zoned separately. js

That could confuse Graham, and would then constitute trademark infringement. I'll sue. js

You wrote "There are emerging technologies such as video analytics that could replace traditional security systems with much more reliable technology." I am guessing you believe that? More reliable than what? Most posts I see here are going for the lowest price point they can find. Once that is their goal if they get hosed by some big national company then they didn't do their homework. Residential alarms use the same wire, horns, batteries, keypads, panels as many small commercial alarms. If they weren't effective at some level insurance companies wouldn't be so keen to see them installed. And what does any cop know about an alarm system? During a 40 mile an hour drive by most alarm trips are going to go down as false. The

90% false alarm rate is easier to explain when guys like you operate them. To leap from that problem to a video analytics solution is a big jump. Most DVR units that do analytics are limited to a single channel and small feature set. Most encoders that do analytics only pump out meta data to some nDVR AND/OR another piece of software on a different hardware platform. None of that gear is cheap or user friendly. I can see turning loose a heard of trunk slammers on video analytics. I see posts here on this NG where some genius says big national companies have to standardize a "program" in a DSC type panel so the installers can cope. Have you ever run an error check on any of these "standard" programs to see what these guys have written? It might be where all those "1's" and "0's" come from for the commercials. This is too rich. If you only aspire to one day being able to program a simple alarm panel as your professional goal, then video analytics in its current form is simply impossible. I can see some regular alarm tech trying to fat finger a keyboard to capture a scene and start setting up object tracking. You're going to trust these guys to pick the 10 best reference scenes to work from? The ones I see post here couldn't pick the 10 best fleas off a dog's butt. Sure you could see up rules based analytics to do all sorts of things like only track a speeding blue car leaving the parking lot. Currently setting up a system could cost as much as a small house. Then who is going to monitor it? Ms. Jones is really going to like the idea of walking around in her house knowing some guy might have his hand on his groin looking while looking at hers? Tell me PLEASE what encoders you have you set up analytics on THIS WEEK. Last week? Ever? Been to training on any? Let me see, I bet that big iSCSI array fits pretty snugly in your trunk. It is packed right next to that Cisco layer 2 switch. Currently the real plus of video analytics is to help to track events and alert operators to conditions that they would not otherwise notice. You know the gorilla and the basketball thing? You wrote "It's already started in the high end government/ industrial markets." No it hasn't! If that were true AD would have purchased Mate already, Genetec would have meta data response and Broadware would do motion search. Is analytics really out of beta at I3DVR yet? It is true that Cisco is into video but I suspect for video conferencing more than security. In five to ten years Bosch might not have its next regular alarm panel out. One with Video Analytics? You're nuts!

"J. @netscape.net>"

Yeah... That's right you prick. I trusted you, and you betrayed that trust. I thought that a disagreement (or battle) online would not break that trust. I was wrong.

I used to admire you for your accomplishments, that's why I sought your advice. Now that I see what you are I realize that RLB didn't just "grab it out of the air" either when he spoke of you.

You're a mean spirited person. Had you really read what I wrote you would have realized all my references to your kin were hypothetical, and in direct response to a hypothetical situation. You jumped the gun and went way beyond acceptable boundaries. Your attack was unfounded.

Fuck You. Filter me if you want. I'm no longer friendly.

If there is no EOLR in that case, cut one of the leads.

You still need a EOLR device!

No,

You short the contact lead at the window before the contact, it works no matter how many are on the loop. (if you're planning on opening that window)