is wireless mature yet

I have lots of DSC wireless out there, and IME it works as well as anyone elses. js

Having reviewed as much as I could take in from 4 years of posts thanks to Google -- and -- R.Campbell, excellent web site ... is there any chance that you experts would consider the GE Simon3 to be a 'real' security system? In particular, is there some way they can justify having the panel/keypad in one unit which I would imagine could be easily 'incompacitated'?

Unfortunately, wireless would be most easily facilitated in our place -- finished basement. I'm willing to rip into the ceiling and under trim if absolutely necessary but would rather not. Is wireless technology mature enough to use yet -- reliably? Have you put in a Paradox or DSC wireless (it appears they do sell such a thing) -- results? Is there a top-of-the-line 'wireless' solution? Replacing batteries is a non-issue (i.e. a minor annoyance as long as it isn't monthly or something); reliability is.

Thanks in advance and regards ...

I agree with Jim, Napco has a good product line, as well as ITI (now GE Interlogix). I've used both and in some instances the range of the Napco wireless outperforms the GE. GE gets bad when you place receivers low, ie: in basements. I have a 150 yr old house in Patchogue, NY with 28 Napco wireless devices and 1 receiver. 3 story wood frame plaster with WIRE LATH! All transmit a 7 or better! Just replaced all batteries after 8 years! Some were still good! Other GE in Northport, NY - Concord 2; 2 story Colonial with attached Garage and office loft above it. Panel/receiver in basement far side. All wirless devices worked, EXCEPT the w/l smoke in the Loft Office! had to add another receiver!!! ! One difference- GE transmit/receive technology is "rolling code"- like door openers- Ademco, Napco are Not! GE makes an "RF Sniffer"- try it- you'll see what I mean. \\Mike Sokoly MES Security Systems

The GE Simon is a REAL security system, but one with a flaw you've already identified. If you are genuinely concerned with the setup, look at the GE Allegro, which is basically a Simon with the telephone communicator in a remote location, so if the panel by the door is damaged, the communicator can still call the CS.

Stay away from the DSC and Paradox wireless. ITI, which GE now owns, has the best wireless devices. If you'd like a more traditional panel (one with a panel and remote keypads) look at the NetworX panels. They are the former Caddx panels and have wireless receivers that work with all the ITI wireless devices. GE now makes the NX-148E-RF LCD keypad that has a 48 zone wireless receiver integrated inside. So you can have your traditional wired panel setup with fully wireless protection.

Julian

Same here... What the heck is he talkin' about??

Mike, I'm going to give you a very important suggestion.

There's a person in this group by the name of Robert Bass. If you should ever get into a disagreement with him, he's going to take the personal information that you give here and use it to contact your suppliers, customers, your employer, (should you have one) and possibly even your neighbors. He'll call ADI and ask for your company name and address and then go real life with you ..... bad mouthing and lying about things you've done. He's done it to others in the past and has stated that he acutally enjoys doing it to people.

Other than that, he's just your normal son of a bitch.

Take heed.

My God! Imagine being new to this group, and doing a Google "search" about wireless...

I can say the same thing about Paradox wireless as well. It's the only stuff I use now when wireless is called for....

RHC

Thanks for the heads up. I've been reading the Group since 1995. I am aware of others past difficulty with Mr. Bass. I have no need to go at with him- I choose not to initiate confrontations, and ignore provocation. But I will also defend myself from whatever is thrown my way, from any source. Mature individuals do not need to banter incessantly about issues. I profer Mr. Campbell as an excellent example of a "Professional"- what this industry sorely needs to address. Discussion and opinion are good- just don't try to ram it down my throat! Many so called "EXPERTS" have little knowledge in the Field or with hands on experience; but can talk a streak rather well. I've met a few.

Thanks all for the info.

Yes, as you can imagine, this did provide *a lot* of entertaining reading.

A couple of follow ups ...

I wish to avoid the big players because -- ADT huge fees that I would actually call 'insane', a friend had problems with them; Alarm Force you don't own the system plus you still pay huge fees and I also don't believe anything is free. Chubb interested me because they didn't push the low cost install lease-to-own type thing when I said that basic install wasn't going to cut it in my place. That's when they mentioned Simon3. When I said I'd prefer to buy the system, their monitoring rate came down to much more reasonable but their contract went up to 5 years. That's when I became 'less interested in Chubb'. Weird, actually, wouldn't you think they'd be excited that I'm willing to buy the system outright and offer a *shorter* contract?

With these experiences, I thought I'd look local, but in speaking with two local's, they are really not excited about wireless to put it mildly. One did say they would do the downstairs wireless (Paradox or DSC), but then I began to wonder a) does this mean they feel it's an acceptable risk putting in half the house wireless when they'd rather not, and b) if not and they're not worried about putting wireless downstairs, then why not the whole house? Hmmm.

Regards.

I've been using wireless at my place for a long time...about 1/3 of my zones are wireless..Mostly cause I didn't want to pass wire to those spot cause I am lazy...;-)

and because I trust it..

I use wireless for contact ,I don't like wireless PIR,and I don't use any here.. 2 of my smoke are wireless and I have one hard wired (was already wired when I got the home ;-) )

never had a problem from RFI (and I am an ham radio operator,and I transmit to up to 1000 watt RF power on some band(HF) )

only time I had a prob was when my transmitter was dead cause it was too cold in the garage and battery could not cope...I got a small trouble on the keypad and I just had to open the thermostat in the garage 1/2 hour later all was back to normal..

I use an hybrid system from DSC power 832...but I like Paradox too...

ITI is ok...but didn't played with there new system lately..

Ademco...I don't like anything from them...period...

"cdn_bcn" a écrit dans le message de news: dej98v$jo4$ snipped-for-privacy@utornnr1pp.grouptelecom.net...

Wireless is very reliable...but, keep in mind it's always going to require maintenance. A smart (non-lazy type) dealer will tell you they'd rather wire a door contact, than put a wireless transmitter on it. There's more profit in wire, initially, with less headaches, long-term. Three to seven dollars for a door contact vs. twenty/thirty/forty dollars for a wireless transmitter. Dealers who install wireless solely, are pretty much only interested in you signing a contract. Nothing is free! Find a small local guy, and you'll probably find out what a professional installation looks like.

Jack

Mike Sokoly wrote:

Good policy unless it becomes unbearable and you become the constant target of a perverted sense of self righteousness or BY someone who feels they have to "soap box" their opinions, about an issue, over and over again.

Thats what this Bass thing is all about.

Unless of course that "mature individual" has been the brunt of attacks by an obviously obssesvive egocentric jerk such as Bass, who states that he can do whatever he pleases in this Newsgroup without regard to the group FAQ or to any normally acceptable social contract. It has to be his way or he will cause disruption. So be it. It works both ways.

You've unwitingly contradicted yourself here. Mr Campbell is an excellent example of someone who, in fact, DOES "banter incessantly about specific issues ...... over and over again .... attempting to "ram it down your throat". He complains greatly about RF Paul's repeated posts about wireless systems, yet can't quite bring himself to avoid grandstanding his opinions over and OVER and O V E R again and AGAIN with regard to ADT and long term contracts. He NEVER misses an opportunity to tell someone how bad ADT is and what bad service they give and what rip offs they are. He also NEVER, E V E R misses an opportunity to "imply" how unscrupulous dealers are, who offer a contract longer than one month. Always with the implication that dealers who get contracts are scamming the public. He's wrong in the opinion of almost 100 percent of the industry mogels and people who are in the buying and selling of alarm companies. Yet ..... he constantly portrays the dealers as unpricipled for wanting to build equity in their business. End users who come here looking for advice are subjected to his incessant badgering about contracts being worthless for the end user. It's his "mission" to tell every end user not to sign monitoring contracts for any length of time. Well .... after a couple of years of his incessant and relentless anti-dealer retoric, it's time that someone take him to task for it. And I do. He's only been in the business for about 5 or 6 years. Has no other experience in the industry. Has another source of retirement income, so equity in his business is of no concern to him. He's been totally inaccurate in how his business will grow and he obtains his business by undercuting his competition, offering free lifetime service and parts, lowballs monitoring fees and has no goal to build equity in his company. And yet he has the audacity to compare himself to "other" dealers to support his position.

Listening to his opinion once or a few times, one might be inclined to let his repetitive rhetoric, on the matter, just pass by. But after a while ya just gotta say something to let him know that, no response from people doesn't mean that what he says is accurate or the right thing to do. It's just one of those things. If someone says something and some agree and some don't ...... ok, you've said your piece ...... it's over. Its ok to bring it up occasioally, but if you're gonna harp on it at every opportunity ........ it's time for someone to take him to task. He's wrong. He knows that most everyone in the group disagrees with him. He knows that most everyone in the industry disagrees with him ...... so ...... what's he think he's going to do? Convince the entire industry from this Newgroup by ceaselessly and relentlessly repeating that which he's already recited over and over for the past 5 years? For-get-about-it already! Run your business the way you see fit, but don't incessantly get on your soap box and preach to people who you know don't agree with you, unless you eventually want to get it thrown back in your face and are just trying to cause disruption.

Nah! Either cut the crap or expect to be confronted each and every time.

That would be both Robert Bass and Robert Campbell . But at least Campbell doesn't lie about his short time or inexperience in the business. Bass hardly ever installed when he did own an installation company but can quote from most any installation instruction sheet as long as it's over 5 years old. He's been caught a number of times claiming that things where his ideas when in fact it was in previously published documents. He's even braged about stealing an installation hint that I'd given in this group. He also lies now, by inferring that he's still in the installation business when he hasn't (legally) installed a system in about six years. He does this when he's trying to get end users to buy from him.

B U T as you say ..... people like him who know the least do "talk a streak" about how much they ...... uhhhh know.

Obviously, you can take or leave the above. I just wanted to be sure you understood the "dynamics" first.

ie. Since you haven't attacked anyone or haven't been attacked yet, no reply is necessary and would perhaps be the best tact. :-)

If installed correctly it can be

The Simon 3 v4 supports the 60-879-95R DTIM phone module just like the Allegro

Thats very easy Frank, if I had to guess julian used the original DSC wireless equipment which was total junk.

Anyone remember the original WLS905 door sensor? Real smart design where you had to push a tab and slide it away from the base, only problem was the tab was on the same side as the magnet so if you mounted it on a window frame it was almost impossible to get the damn sensor apart. Also the battery compartment in several of those 900mhz sensors had a design flaw that caused sensor faults. At Westinghouse we had so many problem with the f****ng things we took to mounding ITI QuickBridge receivers with ITI wireless. It was pathetic...

As someone who has worked with large companies with a huge number of accounts I tend to see problems with panels and sensors long before many here do and I cannot tell you how many problems, how many service calls and how much wasted money was caused by the older 900 mhz wireless and even some of the 433 mhz stuff, granted the sensors they make now ARE better but it's one of those "Burn me once shame on you burn me twice...." kinda things.

BTW this comes from someone who likes DSC panels

No that is fact, Westinghouse used to install around 5,000 PC5010's a week and maybe a quarter of them were wireless, before that we were installing Ademco and ITI wireless. No comparison, with DSC it was nothing but zone faults, defective sensors, low battery life etc

There are a lot of reasons DSC moved to lithium batteries and a new design, many of them were because of the crap 900 stuff

Thats fine however it was an extremely stupid design, also the connector between the base and the battery compartment often wouldn't "reconnect"

The battery configuration would often not seat the batteries correctly

Or the runaway problem with the PC1550, PC1000 and 2530...on and on and on

For a long time, DSC refused to accept they had both a wireless problem and a major credibility problem. Personally, I had so much trouble with their wireless equipment, I stopped installing any of it some time ago. I also posted a small statement on my website that I was no longer going to use DSC equipment until they got what I considered to be their wireless quality control problems fixed. It was a very innocuous statement and didn't really reflect upon DSC in any bad sort of way (in fact, parts of it were complimentary in general); just a statement that for the moment, I was no longer going to sell DSC wireless.

Well, it wasn't up long and surprisingly I got a call from one of DSC's national sales managers asking me to remove it, with a veiled threat that "our lawyers are asking us to ask you to kindly remove it". It had never been my intention to reflect badly on DSC (I also like their panels), so I figured if it bothered them, I'll just take it down. No problem, and certainly no bad feelings whatsoever all around. And certainly no skin off my nose !!

However, later in the same conversation, I was invited to join what he was calling a "wireless confidence study". I was to receive a large volume of wireless equipment free of charge, to be installed by me, with all troubles carefully tracked by DSC. I refused, because taking free equipment under those circumstances would be a clear conflict of interest since I didn't want to install any of it until all problems were resolved at the factory end. I have never heard of this "wireless confidence study" before or since, so I have to assume it was probably only a made up idea on the spur of the moment. Shortly thereafter, I also had the AC rectifier on a Power 832 actually catch fire. It was the backbone of a large commercial system,and cost me a full half day to replace etc. And if it had happened on a weekend when the building was vacant, no doubt it would have caused a fire on the premises. When I mentioned this to one of DSC's visiting technical production managers at the local Tried branch, he asked for the board, saw what had happened and requested he take the board and send me a replacement. I never did receive the replacement board, and I now suspect his main interest was eliminating a possible liability problem. All I know for sure is, his word was no damn good !!

DSC no longer seems to be listening when it's main customers (the alarm dealers) offer up their complaints. Perhaps that is why sales of their equipment (at least through Tried) are down. Too bad; DSC is a good company and overall make a excellent line of products in my opinion. But any company that loses touch with their customer base and doesn't adequately deal with their equipment problems, does so at their peril !!

Hmmmm.....I wonder it this has anything to do with all those "bean counters" at ADT and their influence within the Tyco family.....:)))

Nah.........

R.H.Campbell Home Security Metal Products Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

I would have to also say Nah in a serious way, if anything Tyco prevented them from going belly up, they have pumped millions into the company and most of the problems we've talked about occured several years before Tyco bought em.