Modernizing my 22 year old DSC Alarm Panel

After listening to Episode #72 of the Home Assistant Podcast, with guest Pete Stothers. Pete mentioned an add on board from EyezOn .com called the EnvisaLink 4 New EVL4 DSC & Honeywell Compatible Internet Interface Module. This simple add on board allowed me to modernize my 22 year old wired DSC 832 alarm system by connecting it to my local network and interfacing with the Open Source software Home Assistant. This was a very simple procedure, and also had a bonus of offering a reduced cost of Monitoring from EyezOn.com.

My existing DSC
The add on board mounted to the side of the alarm box.

It took my about 10 minutes to hook up and another 5-10 to connect with and program. Now I have my Alarm disarm when my connected Yale Door lock is unlocked. I also have an automation that detects that I am not home, locks the front door and sets the alarm. There is also a EyezOn Mobile App, but I use the Home Assistant App to Arm / Disarm and monitor the alarm now.

It was very simple to add to Home assistant by following the instructions here https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/envisalink/. Here is my changes in configuration.yaml

envisalink:
  host: !secret envisalink_ip
  panel_type: DSC
  user_name: !secret envisalink_user
  password: !secret envisalink_password
  code: !secret envisalink_code
  port: 4025
  evl_version: 4
  keepalive_interval: 60
  zonedump_interval: 30
  timeout: 10
  panic_type: Police
  zones:
    1:
      name: 'Front Door'
      type: 'opening'
    2:
      name: 'Upper Motion'
      type: 'motion'
    3:
      name: 'Patio Door'
      type: 'opening'
    4:
      name: 'Kitchen Motion'
      type: 'motion'
    5:
      name: 'Computer Room Window'
      type: 'opening'
    6:
      name: 'Garage Door'
      type: 'opening'
      
  partitions:
    1:
      name: 'Home Alarm'

After a reboot, I was able to add Alarm Panel and its sensors to my Love Lace panels.

Overall a very worthwhile upgrade to integrate your old wired alarm system to Home Assistant. I am not investigating interfacing the new sensors I have connect to Home Assistant to enhance my Alarm system coverage. Thanks again to Pete Stothers for making me aware of this great add on.

2 Comments Add yours

  1. Steve says:

    Awesome article about updating your alarm panel, helped me tremendously doing my PC1555-50/50 with an Envisalink 4 and Home Assistant. I look forward to reading all the other articles on this blog!

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