Joggler Alarm interfacing

[mtx512]

This post may be slightly off topic, howerver it did start out with me attempting to get my O2 joggler connected to my Friedland Alarm system . The rest is described here http://jas-hacks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04 ... panel.html

[Juggler]

Hi mtx512

That's some great work you've done ! So you've reverse engineered the protocol used between the PIR and Keypad using an XRF module...

A few months a go I started to look for open hardware / source basic security systems (PIR, switches, light sensors, alarms, etc) and didn't find much. I thought that within a community there must be some great stuff going on say using PICs or Arduinos. Haven't looked into this much, but the rice of commercial basic systems is quite high for what you get. Plus, as I think you have noticed it is possible to buy parts (PIRs, alarm boxes), but they seem to use closed protocols.

I'd really like to build my own security system and using a Joggler as a panel would be a great additional use for it.

Have you come across any open security systems, where the hardware is not expensive ?

The ciseco.co.uk site looks great - and the capabilities of the XRF phenomenal - and it is only £10 !

I've not used an XRF, but does it have some processing capability, as you mentioned you wrote some custom software for it ?

[mtx512]

Hi Juggler,

I'm suprised that no has produced an 'open alarm' implementation and not found any open system. Anyway I've decoded the protocol between all the sensors and the alarm panel, so anythings possible.

Yesterday I updated the code so it outputs the to sensor information to the serial port on the XRF . I'm planning to make the software so that it you could use it to monitor the sensor triggers and also to send commands to the control panel (ie pretend to be a remote fob to arm/disarm it) or set off the outside bell. I was also toying with the idea of creating a panel using the Joggler although I use it as an excuse to get a Raspi instead.

XRF is quite a nice piece of kit because of RF + CPU and lots of potential uses for £10. I'm also looking at implementing some code for control heating using XRF for these http://www.conrad-uk.com/ce/en/category ... onrad-FS20.

[Juggler]

I didn't look that hard, but using keywords "open security system" "open burglar alarm" and other appropriate variations, didn't really bring anything up. There was one company though that seemed to come up and some people had done some work on their alarms - don't have that info at hand, but their stuff wasn't that cheap.

Would you consider making your code available ? Have you considered documenting the protocol ?

I wonder how common the protocol is in alarm systems ? Honeywell are a pretty big company, so may have set some sort of standard for these sort of things and could it be that other companies just get a licence from them to produce compatible hardware ?

Been looking into XRF a bit and there is some great stuff going on with it. I like the long range stuff :

http://openmicros.org/index.php/compone ... s?Itemid=0

I did quite a bit with packet radio in the 80s, where the equipment was a lot bigger and the speeds were similar - over longer distances anyway - an impressive 1200 baud (bits per second). One of the best parts was using the newly launched (at the time) micro satellites, which had highly elliptical orbits, for store and forward of emails.

On a separate, but potentially related point, I wonder if you have come across the use of USB DVB-T and DAB decoders being used for Software Defined Radio (SDR) :

rtl-sdr – OsmoSDR
http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr

RTL SDR
http://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/

I was blown away when I came across this. Its not fantastic, but what you can do with it for the price is phenomenal. I looked at a USRP some time ago after seeing one being used at a local DEFCON meet, and it was a bit out of my price range, despite wanting one a lot.

Maybe one of these would help you crack more of the protocol - if there is more that you need to do that is.

I was also thinking that a USB DAB dongle on a Joggler would be cool - as decent DAB radios are usually well over £50, but then again, I wonder if the Joggler is up to the processing that the host needs to do for the captured frames being passed to it. Well, if I get hold of one, will certainly give it a try...

[Juggler]

Any chance you might release your XRF code ?

[mtx512]

Any chance you might release your XRF code ?

Theres probably a few weeks of work left to get more features working in the code such as registering the list of sensors your interested in, emulating sensors if you wanted to create new hardware yourself that could be detected by the existing panel and creating a bootloader for firmware updates. As the XRF need to be re flashed (requires a programmer) and the pins wired correctly I was probably planning to offer a flashed XRF with the Xino basic board and FTDI adapter for probably not more than the cost of the components themselves. The benefits of this approach would be that you get everything you need to start your own development and the XRF could be reused if you no longer required it for this purpose.

[roobarb!]

Any chance you might release your XRF code ?

Theres probably a few weeks of work left to get more features working in the code such as registering the list of sensors your interested in, emulating sensors if you wanted to create new hardware yourself that could be detected by the existing panel and creating a bootloader for firmware updates. As the XRF need to be re flashed (requires a programmer) and the pins wired correctly I was probably planning to offer a flashed XRF with the Xino basic board and FTDI adapter for probably not more than the cost of the components themselves. The benefits of this approach would be that you get everything you need to start your own development and the XRF could be reused if you no longer required it for this purpose.

Release early, release often!