Summary
I just learned you can self monitor a wired home security system. Now I can avoid spending a bunch of money on a monitored system while using the existing infrastructure.
Why
My 4 and 2 year old have been opening the front door to take themselves on walks which freaks my wife and me out when we cant find them in the house. So my wife asked/told me to make the doors to outside beep when they are opened so we know where the kids are.
We haven't had a home security system since we unplugged it when we moved in a year ago. It was beeping constantly because we didn't have monitoring turned on.
We had a pretty sophisticated hardwired system but a $30/month monitor service seemed overkill. We pay our home insurance every 6 months so we get a cost reduction and our insurance would only give us an additional reduction of $29/year if we added a monitored service. We weren’t prepared to pay $330/year for a monitored service.
Solution
In 2020 Ring released a retrofit kit ($320) allowing you to use the hardwired door and window sensors from an existing security system. There are other devices like Konnected ($230) but Ring’s video got me over my fear that I could do it myself.
Nothing was labeled. So it was trial and error what existing circuits were for what door or window or something else. It took a little bit of time but after cutting and stripping wires and removing resisters I was able to correctly place each zone. I’ve also paired the Ring retrofit with Alexa so our Echos around the house beep when a door opens. I might end up unplugging the system with the constant beeping again. Stay tuned.
NEXT
I would love to see Ring work on a way to incorporate other security devices, Nest cameras, wired smoke/CO detectors, sirens, keypads, …. The Ring retrofit kit was released in December 2019 and Abode a competitive home security system who has all of these integrations should not be too far behind.
