sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Security, Alarms and Paging OnQ/LeGrand CAT5E home automation

First let me say I am glad to have discovered this site and hope to be able to tap into the obvious vast array of knowledge that's here. On another thread I mentioned several residential installs I am doing. I want to incorporate video door entry, modulating 3 or 4 cameras, electric door strike, data, voice, intercom, and possibly audio distribution. Elan, Crestron, OnQ/Legrand (they just bought Vantage too), and a few others come to mind. I want the simplest installation possible and I am leaning toward OnQ since my background is IT and they run almost exclusively on CAT5E. Anyone have any experience with these type of systems, and which ones do you like? I am going to EHX in Long Beach next week and I am really looking forward to seeing all the new products, including those based on Windows Media Center and the new Vista operating system. I loaded Vista Beta 2 on a PC and was not really impressed. I think my graphics card was too wimpy for that transparent GUI they are touting. Just looks like the same old Windows with a new GUI!

Why not install a phone system and a small cctv monitor/camera lcd combination at each place you want a camera. A phone system will cover voice, intercom, paging, and doorstrike.

Topher, even if the home owner only has 2 or three POTS lines coming in? Without going into huge detail, (this is considered consultation as far as I am concerned) what equipment do you suggest? The home will be broken up into 2 units.

Topher is right: Keep voice and video separated.

For voice, Panasonic's KX-TAW824 is the direction you should consider heading for a residential system voice installation. This system doesn't require factory certification to sell. Panasonic also offers some pretty impressive video sytems.

Don't plan on incorporating these into one system, at least not in a residential environment. You should also rethink using those structured wiring panels. Although their design and intentions are good, they aren't likely to become a standard.

I am already having a hard time finding replacement wiring modules from an "IBM" structured wiring system that was installed by Verizon's wiring "contractors" in a local community. Verizon won't help the customers and we can't get replacement parts for these systems.

Until a uniform and interchangable residential structured wiring system is made available, I don't see them lasting very long.

As Ev said. Yes, even with two or three POTS lines, you get outside line access, room-to-room (intercom), paging, even a door-phone if you need it. Panasonic is a good brand. It'll save head-ache for you in the long run, and IF I were the customer I would enjoy being able to answer a line and a door-bell or intercom call on the same phone...oh wait! I do enjoy that!

as far as your distributed audio...Elan is real nice, real expensive and if you are not an authorized dealer hard to find and hard to program. If you want a decent audio distribution check out Russound, it may not be the real flashy but it works real well and is easy to use. keypads are wired via cat5

Hi anthonyh. First let me say, "I swear I did not touch anything" is the BEST quote! I have found that during an outage, wearing a toolbelt or even carrying tools qualifies you immediately for blame. hahahah After you wire the keypad, you go to the speakers with 16/2 from there? Is that correct?

I pull either 16/2 or 14/2 home runs from the speakers to the main unit, or I will pull a 4 conductor speaker wire to teh room, and just use teh second pair for the second speaker