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Comment by throwaway21816 | Hacker News Reader

You could make one. A bunch of ESP8266 modules connecting back to a rasberrypi via SSL with a strict sensor timeout would mitigate the comcast alarm style bypasses. As for a remote, key fobs are so 1990s! Connect your smart phone using an app.

Ta-da! A custom alarm system that doesnt suck.

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To add to this: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13285 + https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13247 + https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8653 + https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13120

You now have 99% of the security offered by an alarm system, go buy an ADT yard sign from Amazon and you have 99.9%

You're missing the security of calling the cops. Your system won't have that. Noise-makers are the "easy" part of security (they sell off the shelf ones for pretty cheap, no need for homemade).

Calling the cops really does no good depending on where you live. I had a false alarm a few years back while I was away from home. Three hours later and about an hour after I had returned home, an officer came by to check on the alarm.

No, I had never had any false alarms prior to this one. I live in a moderately sized suburb, not Detroit.

Have it call you then you can call the cops or have it call your neighbors.

The utility of calling cops is vastly over-rated in most parts of the United States due to police response times being slow.

Yep, that is the difficult piece. It would be nice if there was company that does that for consumers. Essentially DIY security system + A company that a consumer can sign up for monitoring the alerts and calling cops etc. A cheap cell phone plan would also be needed as well.

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