Looking for suggestion migrating from older Elan g! to DYI

[jim6]

We recently purchased a home with an older Elan G! system that is fully integrated with the alarm system (needs upgraded), surveillance system (needs upgraded), Lutron RA2 lighting, 3 HVAC systems, and a full AV switching with multiple sources, 8 zones of audio hanging off of 2 SpeakerCraft amps and 6 TVs. There have been some upgrades including a Binary 8x8 HDMI switcher w/HDBase T and a Home Theater system as well.

The whole system is great and was very high end at the time, but it is showing its age and I really don't want to be beholden to the dealer for changes and upgrades. And am not sure I'm up for the thousands of dollars I'm expecting they will quote me for an new alarm and controller upgrade.

Since I am technically inclined (been in IT for years and have done upper mid to high end home and car audio for years), I am thinking about rolling my own to replace everything. I know I will have to do some piecemeal, but would like to make everything as integrated looking and easy to use for my decidedly non-tech minded wife. I have looked at the Konnected. io alarm system that integrates with the Elevation, as a replacement for the alarm and am leaning that direction when they finally release the Pro version that is in pre-order status.

While I need to replace all of the control structure in the system, my focus right now is a replacement surveillance system. The old system has several analog cameras that I would rather not replace, but will if necessary. Any thoughts/suggestions/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

We do NOT plan on having any Google or Alexa integration, but will control everything from tablets and phones.

Any suggestions for the alarm, surveillance, HVAC, audio and video would be greatly appreciated. I want to take my time on this one and do it right.

Thanks!
Jim in Washington

[Terk]

Konnected is great for bringing all the sensors into Hubitat and you can add a wired siren as well. They also make an integration board which let you keep the existing alarm system and just makes the devices available to HE if you'd like to keep that alarm system.

HE doesn't really have a alarm monitoring solution right now however you could look at Noonlight as you can make a virtual switch and make that available to them and turn it on when your HSM is activated and it will alert them (I haven't tried their service).

Blue Iris is a great NVR product if you are interested in loading it on a Windows 10 "Server" with a large HDD. It integrates locally using BI Control with Hubitat to let HE change its profiles (notification, and recording rules) based on HE Modes so you can have internal cameras only record when your away and outside cameras motion settings different during the day or night to help eliminate false positives from sun/shadows. However it requires IP cameras or at least coax to IP converters added to the cameras.

[BGP]

@jim6 I think our homes might be twins. That matrix switch must be party of the Elan G! standard dealer playbook; have the same thing. Wyrestorm 8x8 matrix. I'm curious how your Elan replacement is going? I'm considering going for a full replacement but currently researching how to tie in something new. HE seems like non-issue for the lighting, full Lutron RA2, but I need to figure out what to do about a/v distribution, and remote control of the sources (BD and a few AppleTV's interacted with via IR flashers, through Yamaha recivers) where a traditional remote is still desirable. I could lose that matrix if I needed to, as I'd prefer an upgrade to 4k as I start to replace TV's, but obviously whatever I do would have to be compatible with ethernet vs hdmi.

[jim6]

I ended up separating the A/V out from the home automation. The two together are great, if you have 10s of thousands to spend on a Crestron or the likes, and are OK being reliant on the dealer if you want anything changed. The other issue is upgrading as TVs get higher resolution. In talking to a few people, it just seemed more future proof to pull the A/V (especially the video) out of the automation system. I ended up getting a Home Theater Direct Lync system (HTD.com) for audio. The video, I had already put FireTV sticks though out the house and am able to back feed the tv audio as a source to the HTD system for the speakers in the few rooms that need it. The FireTV sticks are a lot cheaper and easier that trying to get the matrix fully functional. For my main theater room, I did go for the Harmony Elite with a Hub. Eventually, I am going to tie that in through some HE integration. That will probably be a project for late this winter.

As far as other pieces, I am using Konnected for the alarms in the house and shop and Blue Iris for the security cameras.

Good luck w/your project - Jim