SimpliSafe & Blue Iris (A Match made in Heaven)
- Thread starter Tiger_Claw
- Start date
I was about to build my entire system around the new Verasecure. On paper, it appeared to be exactly what I wanted.
Yet in their forums, it seemed like Vera did a horrible job documenting what exactly the thing did (how it could connect to monitoring service, etc.). Apparently nobody could figure out how to use the thing, because there was no documentation.
Don't get me wrong, seems like Vera has awesome products, but I wasn't going to build a security system if the company I was basing it on didn't first develop adequate documentation. To me, this gap is a warning sign that their system development life cycle is poor.
I still may end up getting one of their Veraplus controllers, since it provides for great flexibility in how complex you can build your scenes, etc.
Yet since the Honeywell Lyric now supports zwave and 2gig, I may not need it. Depends on whether or not it allows for complex rules/scenes.
Have you ever felt that an upgrade to the Veraplus would be worth it?
With Simplysafe, I would worry about "smash and crash". This is when bad guy breaks down front door, and destroys alarm control unit in the time when you would normally disarm.
But you can hide the control unit, so bad guy can't find it in 30 seconds, and you should be good then.
But you can hide the control unit, so bad guy can't find it in 30 seconds, and you should be good then.
Never had a need to... And i do agree, terrible documentation, forums are your friend with vera.
Yet once i had it setup and visonic and bi apps installed, it is rock solid and needs no maintenance or rebooting. I have it on a ups, so it never even reboots.
Oh don't get me wrong, it has superior customization, ability to create complex scenes/rules and almost unlimited ability of integration with devices via API/WGET/CURL.
It's just that it pissed me off a company creates a product to protect people, without first creating the appropriate documentation.
I do this for a living, and this is almost always a result of poor programming and change management processes, appropriate vulnerability, bug-scrub and performance tuning, etc.
In principle, don't sell me something that's supposed to protect what I care about, unless you show me that your not screwing around. It's insulting.
In reality, do I really need a 99.999999% up-time security system, built by programmers and hardware techs at an enterprise-level? No, but if that's made available (i.e., Honeywell, etc.), Why wouldn't I?
Plus, you can slave a Vera to the Honeywell, and get the best of both worlds (talking about the non-security system vera device).
If not for me being hard-headed, I totally would have taken the same path you did.
It's just that it pissed me off a company creates a product to protect people, without first creating the appropriate documentation.
I do this for a living, and this is almost always a result of poor programming and change management processes, appropriate vulnerability, bug-scrub and performance tuning, etc.
In principle, don't sell me something that's supposed to protect what I care about, unless you show me that your not screwing around. It's insulting.
In reality, do I really need a 99.999999% up-time security system, built by programmers and hardware techs at an enterprise-level? No, but if that's made available (i.e., Honeywell, etc.), Why wouldn't I?
Plus, you can slave a Vera to the Honeywell, and get the best of both worlds (talking about the non-security system vera device).
If not for me being hard-headed, I totally would have taken the same path you did.
