[TriLUG] OT: Home Security without the phone line?

[Pete Soper via TriLUG]

What I meant was for the system to leverage a cell phone (e.g. via 
Bluetooth) instead of having to include its own cell modem, not to call 
an alternate phone number. But a lot of people don't have old cell 
phones lying around to use this approach and it's one more complex thing 
to go south when you need it to be highly available.

My brother uses SimpliSave and as an off the shelf solution this seems 
to be very popular.

-Pete

On 12/7/20 1:01 PM, Charles Fischer wrote:
> I use SimpliSafe and SimpliSafe uses the cell phone system for 
> connections.  My system is older and uses the telephone network as 
> backup.  I think the newer systems use cell and wifi.  This is a 
> simple system to install and monitoring is on the low cost side.
>
> I have not looked to see if there is a hack to have it call my cell 
> phone, and not the montering service.
>
> Good luck,
> Charles Fischer
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 12:49 PM Pete Soper via TriLUG 
> <trilug at trilug.org <mailto:trilug at trilug.org>> wrote:
>
>     Those who were around for the fun time named hurricane Fran may
>     recall
>     it was the big wake up call to the cell carriers that generators to
>     carry their towers through extended outages were a good idea.
>     Don't know
>     if they made permanent improvements or not, but there was a fairly
>     drastic set of symptoms during that adventure. Of course at the
>     beginning the system was completely overwhelmed by calls, but
>     after days
>     that wasn't the basic problem, then it got better as generators were
>     lashed up. Or at least that was the situation were I was (Wake
>     county,
>     outside Apex).
>
>     If you can hack your cell phone to support a security service, great.
>     But cellular modems have their own collection of issues. No free
>     lunch.
>     If you go that route I suggest staying on the center line in the
>     middle
>     of the road by copy-catting a system with an excellent track record.
>     Perhaps something from Adafruit or SparkFun with a real community of
>     users to help get over any bumps in the road if there are some. Avoid
>     magical thinking about signal strength, antennas, the value of a
>     relatively or completely unobstructed view of the tower, and above
>     all
>     else, Mr Lightning.
>
>     -Pete
>
>
>     On 12/7/20 10:01 AM, Bill Weinel via TriLUG wrote:
>     >
>     > All local AT&T switching offices have large battery banks which can
>     > run their systems for days with no utility power. They also have
>     > generators in order to charge the batteries... which is why the
>     POTS
>     > phone system stays up even during widespread power outages. Most
>     ISPs
>     > don't invest in the same amount of power infrastructure to keep
>     their
>     > services up during an extended power outage. If you're using
>     telephone
>     > service for alarm or security purposes, the best bet is to use POTS
>     > telephone service. Otherwise, for VOIP phone service, the next best
>     > thing is to use a cellular phone service since most cell sites are
>     > generator powered during a widespread power outage.
>     >
>     >
>     > cheers,
>     >
>     > bill
>     >
>     >
>     > On 12/7/20 1:35 AM, Jeremy Portzer via TriLUG wrote:
>     >> Phone companies know that people rely on their service for
>     alarms and
>     >> other critical services, hence they have a lot of
>     infrastructure to
>     >> provide backup power to their COs and switching stations.  Over
>     the
>     >> years many people report that their phone service stays up during
>     >> ice/snow storms and hurricanes when nearly every other utility
>     fails.
>     -- 
>     This message was sent to: Charles Fischer
>     <cfischer at modernferrotype.com <mailto:cfischer at modernferrotype.com>>
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