Build a PC-based Home Security System

My home city of San Francisco is a fairly safe place to live, but a few break-ins in my neighborhood had me contemplating some sort of home security system. After I heard friends talk about how limited most conventional alarm-based systems are, I found myself wishing for something more functional and more flexible. The only way I could reach this goal, I reasoned, was to build a security system that was somehow integrated with my home PC. This set the gears in motion for what turned out to be a fairly rigorous Recipe.

I had several goals for building a do-it-yourself home security system. First, I wanted a keypad near the door that offered multiple options for arming the system. Next, I required cameras capable of notifying me of suspicious activity near the front and back doors—as well as motion sensors that would disregard motion by my dogs. I also wanted the ability to automate the lights in my house. Most important, I wanted to manage the settings of my alarm system from a central PC.

With the exception of dog-ignoring motion detectors, I was able to meet all my goals. How? After performing considerable research, both online and over the phone, I finally found a company that provides every service and device I was looking for, including dog-ignoring motion detectors (though my dogs were too big for the sensors) and a cool biometric door lock. That company was Smarthome.com in Irvine, Calif. It offers numerous devices for protecting, securing, and automating houses.

That said, I was dismayed by the company's woefully inadequate installation manual. Over the course of two days I'd stripped wires, spliced cables, and scratched my head over the manual's puzzling diagrams. All this made my task much more difficult than I'd anticipated. I eventually figured it out, but only after grasping some key principles and wiring logic.

My pain is your gain. Simply follow the guidelines in this Recipe, and you'll be able to provide a high-quality, low-cost PC-based home security system. By adding the ability to build out a home security system to your repertoire, you'll be able to increase your customer base, add some follow-up fees to your services, and in the process make some extra cash—always a good thing.

Ingredients

For this project, you'll need the following components:

Elk M1 Gold Kit: The heart of the security system, the Gold Kit functions as the "brain" of the entire security system. It comes housed in a large steel cabinet case you can mount on a wall. This will be your main purchase for the project, but it's still a bargain at about $650.

The M1 Gold Kit is manufactured by Elk Products and resold by Smarthome.com. The system comes with a LCD keypad, main unit, power transformer, 12-volt battery, speaker, and numerous relays, terminal blocks, and wires (shown below). Also, the system comes in both wired and wireless flavors. Wired is more secure and less prone to failure; the wireless version is much easier to install, but can fail if the various devices' batteries die. Purchasing the Elk M1 Gold Kit also grants you access to the PC- and Mac-based control software, which lets the user set up and control the system from a central computer in the house.

INSTEON Starter Kit: INSTEON is a powerful, wireless home-control networking technology that integrates systems in the home. The price is a reasonable $100. There's an excellent detailed definition of INSTEON home control technology on this Wikipedia page. Here's the nutshell version: At its core, INSTEON is a dual-mesh network that allows you to remotely and wirelessly control multiple types of devices: security systems, home sensors, lights, heating, and other appliances.

Panasonic BL-C30A wireless camera: These plug-and-play cameras are compatible with 802.11g/b wireless networks, and they allow you to pan and tilt from any PC or cellphone. I recommend these Panasonic cameras because they can alert you via email or cellphone if they're activated. They also have a built-in privacy button for easy deactivation. They go for $185 each, and for this system, you'll need two. Here's a look:

1,000 feet of 4 Conductor 22-Gauge Unshielded Cable from Smarthome: Used to connect all the different devices to each other and to the M1 Gold main unit. It will cost around $115.

End Of Line (EOL) Relays from Smarthome: End-of-line (EOL) relays are used to allow various sensors and devices to communicate an open/closed status to the main M1 Gold unit. You get 16 included with the unit, which should cover your needs on this project. If you need more, they go for around $13 each.

Smarthome's 51006L Fingerprint Keypad Lock : This is a biometric lock that only works if your fingerprints match the ones in this device's memory. The average retail price is roughly $280. Here's a look:

Smarthome's Dual Technology Motion Sensors with swiveling mounting brackets : Motion sensors are an important element of any security system. They typically sell for about $70 each. Depending on the number of rooms you want to secure, you will probably need at least two of these motion sensors, perhaps more.

Smarthome's Magnetic Window/Door contact : Window and door contacts allow the security system to detect unauthorized entry into a home, and will cost you around $50 each. I recommend you get enough of these contacts to cover the first floor windows and the front and back doors. Buy more if your customer prefers more complete coverage on the entrance and exit ways.

Alarm monitoring from Smarthome : This will give your customer 24x7 response from a professional central station that will contact the police or fire department in case the alarm goes off. Without this, your security system will only rely on the alarm to scare intruders away. Upon intrusion, the system will ring and ring, but if no one ever checks on your home, the system can't be considered effective. A contract with Smarthome goes for $8.95 per month with no long-term contract required.

Tools: To install this system, you'll need two common tools: a wire stripper and a flat-head screwdriver. Installing the Security Cameras

Because the Panasonic security cameras do not communicate with the M1 Gold security system, I decided to install them first. The cameras are plug-and-play, which means I was able to quickly connect them to my existing 802.11g wireless network. Note: My network is 802.11g, so no "b" was required.

I found installing the cameras to be an extremely straightforward process. First, I installed the software on the PC. Second, the software detected my two cameras on the wireless network and prompted me to enter my network's WEP password, which I did. This connected the cameras to my wireless network.

Eight Steps to Installing the Smarthome M1 Gold Kit

Next, it was time to install the heart of the PC-based home security system, the Smarthome M1 Gold Kit.

• Connect the Keypad to the Main Control: My first step was to hook up the proper cables to the keypad. This arms and disarms the alarm system when someone enters the house. To do this, I spliced a 30-foot length of the 22-gauge cable to the wires connected to the M1 Gold and the keypad. The manual does a lousy job of explaining this, so here's how it works:
• The keypad comes with a removable wiring plug for the connecting the M1 Gold system to the keypad. The removable wiring plug has six colored cables running off of it. I spliced together the appropriate colored cables—black, white, green, and red—from the wiring plug to the same colored cables on a run of conductor cable long enough to reach the control panel.
• The remaining two cables in the plug are used for ancillary purposes, such as connecting multiple keypads. The splicing process was surprisingly easy. After stripping the covering off to expose the wires, I inserted the ends of same-color pairs into the provided splicing caps, which have a conducting gel inside.
• Next, I connected the keypad—via the conductor cable—to the main M1 Gold Control Board. The process for connecting this and all other components to the main control is fairly straightforward. A series of removable wiring plugs snap into the main console. You simply insert each wire from the component into the appropriate base of the wiring plug. Then, to make and secure the contact, use a flat-head screwdriver to tighten a screw above the connector. The process is similar to the way you plug in speaker wire.
• Connect the power transformer and battery to the Control Center: This was a fairly simple, too. I connected the 16.5-volt transformer to the AC slots on the main control. This provides power to the main control board. Then I plugged the heavy, 12-volt standby battery that comes with the M1 Gold Kit into the main controls. This provides backup electricity in the event of a power outage.
• Note: To avoid shocking myself or short-circuiting the system, I did not yet plug the system into a power source.
• Connect the various modules: Next, it was time to connect the burglary and smoke detection devices to the control panel. I used the supplied roll of conductor cable for our cable runs. Here's how that worked:
• The M1's central control panel is divided into 16 wiring zones. The status of each zone is monitored by the control panel. There are two basic status types: open and closed. Depending on which wires you connect to each zone, you set the device you're connecting to the control panel to be in either a NO (normally open) or an NC (normally closed) state. A magnetic contact in your front door, for example, would be wired in an NC state. Most devices will be wired as NC, though some, such as a smoke detector, are wired to be NO. Both NC and NO devices can be daisy-chained together.
• The connection for a typical NC device consists of two cable connections. A wire runs from the NC contact on the device to one of the zone contacts. Another wire runs from a C (the capacitance or capacitor) contact on the device to an N (negative) contact on the control device. A 2200-ohm EOL (end of line) resistor connects the C and NC contacts on the last (or only) device on the line. This EOL resistor allows the control panel to monitor the wiring, which prevents someone from tampering with the wiring in order to fool the panel. The connection for an NO device is similar except that the EOL transistor connecting the C and NC contacts is broken. This creates the normally open state.
• In this way, I installed and connected several devices to the M1 Gold's circuitry Each device communicates an open or closed state to the M1 Gold. If this state falls outside of the parameters I'd set, the appropriate action occurs. For example, the keypad prompts for input, or the alarm rings. Here are the devices I attached:
  • Smoke alarm: As mentioned above, this is an NO device. It's normally open, and if smoke is detected, the circuit closes, alerting the control panel and activating the alarm. Because my smoke alarm is powered by the M1 Gold main terminal, I had to connect the last two wires in the conductor cable (which has four) to the auxiliary power supply on the control center. A power-loss detector and terminating module sends a signal to the control center if power to the smoke detector is lost.
  • Magnetic contacts: These devices consist of a magnetic base and a smaller contact. When a door is closed, the magnetic field is closed. When the door is open and the alarm is armed, the control center registers this. Depending on which profiles you set using the software, the alarm will ring immediately, or the keypad can prompt you to enter a pass code.
  • Motion detectors: The infrared and microwave sensors in these devices register movement. These devices also feature separate tamper-sensitive connections. This lets the security system detect whether someone has tried to unscrew the case of the motion detector or otherwise disable it.
  • Siren: The siren is neither an NC nor NO device. It's essentially a speaker, and it plugs into the right side of the control panel.
  • Phone line: This lets the control panel's built-in modem dial the fire department or alarm-monitoring service in case of a triggering event. The control panel is connected between the outside line coming into the home and the in-home lines.
• Connect the lighting controls: The M1 Gold security system is compatible with INSTEON wireless home technology, which allows the occupants of a house to remotely control numerous home functions, such as lighting and heating. One of the advantages of the compatibility between the M1 Gold and the INSTEON lighting components I selected is that when used together, this security system offers the ability to control a home's lighting and thermostat via either the system's keypad or a local or remote PC.
• To get it all to work, two steps are required: First, connect the M1XSP lighting/thermostat interface to the keypad and to the M1 Gold Control. Second, connect the PowerLinc V2 module to the M1 Gold Control and to a power outlet. Each remotely controlled light plugs into a wireless switch. Note: Because my house uses an old-school, non-thermostat heater, I wasn't able to take advantage of the thermostat controls. Here's a look at the lighting controls on the M1 Gold Control:
• Connect the Control unit to the PC: The final connection is the most important one of all. Using the supplied RS-232 serial cable, I connected the serial port on the M1 Gold Control to my PC. I also used this opportunity to install the ELK-RP Software, the control software that allowed me to control security settings as well as access the INSTEON devices to automate the times of day when my lights would come on and go off.
• Install Fingerprint and Keypad Lock: I simply replaced my existing lock/bolt with this device. Teaching the device to recognize my fingerprint was also a snap. This took nearly no time at all.
• Turn on and test the system: Finally, the moment of truth. With everything connected, I plugged the M1 Gold Control into an AC outlet. Thankfully, the keypad lit up and performed an initialization sequence. Somehow, despite my lack of experience, I had connected everything properly.
• After the initialization, I took 20 minutes to create connections between the wireless light switches and the INSTEON base controller, which allows remote access to the lights in my home connected to INSTEON wireless switches. The process of creating the connections between these switches and the INSTEON base controller is virtually identical to connecting a PC's wireless keyboard and mouse to a base receiver. You press a button on the receiver that places it (the receiver) in receive mode. Then you press a button on the switch itself to connect the two.
• Program System via PC: This was the key step in providing connectivity between my PC and the M1 Gold security system. By linking the two, I would be able to establish all sorts of settings, parameters, and responses. I needed the ELK-RP software application to connect my PC to the security system. This step was also easy. I downloaded the ELK-RP software from the Elk dealer's Web site (the location is provided when you purchase the M1 Gold Control).
• After installing the software, I had to reboot my system. I then launched the ELK-RP software. I toggled a menu setting to set the software to communicate with the M1 Gold Control via the serial port. Then the software checked for and found compatibility.
• The software then found a network connection. This let me jump into the heart of programming and automating my security system. Overall, the ELK-RP software is fairly straightforward to use. You set up a series of "Tasks" (essentially macros) that govern the system's behavior in specific situations. For example, you can set up a Task that says: "Anytime the front door is opened, the security key pad should beep for 30 seconds. If the proper code is input during this time, disarm the system. If not, sound the alarm and call the police."

With that, I had finished my installation. Was it all worthwhile? Yes. The moment I booted the system up and began to experiment with various settings and controls, my face broke into a huge smile. Within a few hours, I had completely rigged my system to operate and function like a professional installation.

Now you know how to install a wired or wireless security system, keep your customers' houses secure, and grow your business.

GEORGE JONES is a technology writer and computer-games consultant based in San Francisco.