Hi, everyone. I have a budding home automation setup started ay my home, and I want to integrate my security system into it. My current system is wired, and I used a NetworX NX-8v2 as the “brain”. I plan to get rid of it and the old, yellowing keypads.
My current system has 23 zones, and I’m not sure if I can reduce it down to 12. I’ve heard that Konnect used to sell a 24-zone board, but I can’t seem to find that. What’s the best way to move forward if I want to keep all 23 zones? Thanks!
edit: I’m using Home Assistant and have a Home Assistant “yellow”
I’m in a similar position and whilst I’m far from being a Konnected expert, what I have repeatedly discovered is that to expand beyond 12 zones, you almost certainly need a second alarm panel (or more if 24 zones isn’t enough).
There used to be a 6 channel add-on board that has since been discontinued. I was initially hoping to find a couple of these maybe “old stock” as I wrongly believed they plugged into the main alarm panel (2 connectors are for “piggy backing” existing 12 zones not adding more zones) but since learning they were wifi only (no direct connection, ethernet or poe) I’m slowly resigning to the need of a second complete device.
What I’m unsure of is whether those 2 (or more) alarm panels then operate as one alarm system with double the IO or if they work as 2 alarm panels, combined only in an app or HA integration.
I also struggle with needing 2 poe switch ports to operate a single 24 zone alarm box. A second rj45 port to allow daisy-chained units would be better IMO.
Whilst I shall continue to research this myself, maybe find some answers here on the forum, hopefully @nate can expand on “needing another alarm panel” as it seems to be quite a popular topic.
So we’ve never had a 24-zone board. We did previously sell a 24-zone kit that consisted of four 6-zone boards. These 6-zone modules have indeed been discontinued. We’re expecting to replace these smaller modules with a new product this year.
Like all of our devices, each one operates independently and reports its individual zones to HA or SmartThings or whatever platform you’re integrating with. They don’t daisy-chain together or piggy-back on each other. Each board has it’s own IP address and independent connection to your smart home hub/platform.
In a multi-board setup, the smart home platform acts as the brain to pull it all together into one cohesive alarm system. In Home Assistant, this is easy by setting up the Manual Alarm component or Alarmo integration to pull all of your sensors (from different devices) into one alarm system managed by HA. In SmartThings, this is just as easy with SmartThings Home Monitor.
We do now have the standalone alarm system feature, where the bulk of the alarm logic runs on the device itself, but this is only ideal for setups that can run on a single Alarm Panel.
So the bottom line is yes – to expand beyond 12 zones on your Alarm Panel Pro, if Ethernet and PoE is a requirement, then you would need a second Alarm Panel Pro and ethernet connection for the second set of 12 zones. You can use a cheap small PoE+ switch in or near your alarm panel enclosure to expand your ethernet capability.
I bought the Konnected Alarm Panel Pro Interface Kit about 4 years ago and this consisted of the 12 zone alarm panel pro board and two 6 zone interface modules that connect directly to the alarm panel pro board making a total of 24 zones. Unfortunately, I have not been able to connect the 24 zones to home assistant using ESPHome (I only get the 12 zones from the alarm panel pro board). If anyone knows how to do this please let me know.
The Konnected web sites says they add 6 additional zones as the following …
Add-on Board
Accommodates an additional 6 input zones
3.3V signal output to connect a piezo buzzer or relay module
5V+ output for powering a 5V relay module or DHT sensor (sold separately, right in the illustration).
In any respect, I was mislead four years ago into believing I purchased a kit for 24 zones. I don’t even have an alarm panel, so I don’t know why I would have bought the kit unless I thought it expanded the zones from 12 to 24. Anyway, I’m not going to buy another alarm panel pro for $230 that only supplies 12 additional zones. Instead going to spend $30 on an esp32 board setup with 30 available digital inputs. I’m retired now, so I have more time than money.
