We are moving to a new home next week and I am looking into the DIY route. I think I have a pretty good idea of what will be required, but I was curious if you could advise on what sensors you would recommend for our home and layout. I am looking at the 2GIG panel for the master bedroom and a TS1 somewhere on the first floor near the front door and garage door entrances to the home. We have 4 exterior doors and the garage door entrance that I was looking to put 2GIG-DW10-345 sensors on those five doors. There are 11 double hung windows on the first floor and basement that I was considering for Mighty Mouse sensors. I was also considering motion detectors for the basement and main floor.
Some things to keep in mind when deciding between full service and DIY service-
Do you have any pets? If you have cats who have free reign, then motion detectors will only cause you havoc. Dogs are a different story. There is an explanation for this in this video -
So far it sounds like you’ve got a solid plan for designing your system.
The 2GIG-DW10-345 is the sensor I would recommend putting on the doors and the Mighty Mouse sensors are exactly what I would have suggested for the windows.
Do you have pets? Any animal that can get onto the furniture could cause false alarms with the motion detectors. So any cats or dogs that have free reign of the house while you’re away may eliminate the motion detectors as a possible option when designing your system.
If that’s the case, I would suggest getting 2GIG Wireless Glass Break Detectors or Honeywell 5853 Glass Break Detectors as a possible second option.
It should be noted that while most homes have built in smoke detectors, in many cases, those are only really useful for when you’re at home. They don’t communicate out and are basically just noise makers. It may be worth considering getting a couple 2GIG Wireless Smoke/Heat Detectors. They would be setup to communicate to the central station so that in the event of a fire whether you’re at home or not, they will communicate to someone that smoke is detected.
We do have a cat, but she is getting up there in years and does not do much climbing these days. I may drop to 1 of the Honeywell motion detectors to cover the basement entry points. I haven’t done much research on the glass break sensors, but that definitely sounds like it may work better right now. The Honeywell glass break detector looks to be more flexible. Would you need multiple glass break detectors in a single room if there are windows and glass doors on 3 of the walls?
A few more questions:
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Can door/window sensors be configured to be solely informational? I was contemplating placing them on our younger kids’ bedroom doors to be alerted if they get up during the night.
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With security activity monitoring, can you select which sensors are configured for activity monitoring while leaving some as solely security monitoring.
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Is there a better solution for two side-by-side windows than a contact sensor for each window?
1.) That somewhat depends on size of the room they’re being placed in. The maximum range for a 2GIG Glassbreak is 15ft and the maximum distance for a Honeywell Glassbreak is 25ft. As long as the Glassbreak Detector has Line-of-Sight to all the windows and is within that range, one may be enough to cover the room.
2.) Yes, Door/Window sensors can be programmed as “No Response Type”. This makes them non-reporting sensors for security purposes but allows them to be used for activity monitoring if so desired.
3.) Yes, not all sensors need to be selected for activity monitoring.
4.) If I were designing the system for my own house, I would probably use motion detectors instead of window sensors in order to save some money. However, if you can’t because of pets, then unfortunately the best option is just putting a sensor on each window. I know your cat is older and doesn’t climb much, but if you ever plan on getting another cat it’s something to keep in mind.