Home security/automation advice

elsmandino

Apologies in advance for a rather techy question but advice from anyone in the know would be much appreciated.

I am looking to add some home security and automation to my home.

My original plan was to run everything off a raspberry Pi but I quickly changed my mind about this for two main reasons:

1. For a burglar alarm, I need something purpose built for absolute reliability.

2. Automation of my heating/hot water seems better served by something like Nest.

I can then have a raspberry pi to deal with all the other home automation - turning light off and on remotely etc.

Am I over-complicating things or is there a better way of doing things?

Thanks

WobblyDog

I agree with using a commercial burglar alarm for reliability reasons. The wired burglar alarm I have is reassuringly low-tech and extremely reliable. It's also fairly simple to interface to it with a bit of electronics knowledge.


If you're more concerned with monitoring things than controlling them, you might want to look at network cameras (some of them have IO ports) and I2C temperature sensors.


That said, the Raspberry Pi sounds great and this is a good reason to buy one.