Hi.

I have a DSC 864 alarm panel and was wondering how to get some sort of alert in my theater if a door / window is openned, the door bell rings, etc while in my home theater. We cannot hear anything in the house while in the theater and it poses a somewhat of a safety concern.

Any way to do this through the RTI T3 / RP6?

If not any other suggestions to get some sort of alert in the room (flashing light) and who makes such a product?

Thanks!

Jeff,

I don't have that same panel, but a similar one.
There are 2 things that I have done that are close to what you are looking to do. Perhaps there is an easier way that others can point out, but the RTI is a bit limited being one way.

First, My control panel has X-10 built into it. I think your DSC panel has this option. I know X-10 can be kind of clunky, but it works for what we are looking to do....and it was already on our alarm panel. For any type of "major" alarm, we have it set to send a lights on to several lights around the house, including the theater. This has worked without issue and was very easy to do and didn't take integration into the RTI.

Second, We wanted status information on other types of events while in the theater if we choose so (garage door up, doorbell, motion in the different parts of the house, etc.) Since we have the status of all of these in the alarm panel, and it has X-10, I'm using and X-10 to IR converter, to trigger macro's in the RTI system. Here is the cool part. My Anthem Preamp can be controlled by RS-232, and also has the abilty to write custome text lines via RS-233 to it's OSD that shows up on the projector...in the same way the volume does when you change it. I just program the RP6 to send the string "garage door has opened" to the anthem, and learn the IR to trigger that macro. Now, if we are in the theater, and the garage door opens, we get a polite popop "Garage Door Has Opened" right there on the screen. For my daughter, who is 4, and likes to get out of bed and explore at night...we get a pop-up when if she gets out of her bed. If my wife is upstairs with her, and not in the theater, I just turn them off, and watch without any distraction. I've gotten nothing but rave feedback from guests since I integrated these into the theater. Does your Halco have a similar feature? If so, they RP6 could take advantage of it. If not, you could do the light thing, etc.

Boy that is agreat idea...

However, I am going to soon be running all my video through a Radiance processor directly to my projector - so all HDMI (digital) video will completely bypass my Halcro processor. A second HDMI output from the Radiance processor will deliver the lossless audio via HDMI to the Halcro. So any pop up from the Halcro won't make it to the screen.

The reason I do this is the Halcro is a bit quirky. WHen I hit the status button on my Halcro remote, it puts a OSD page on the projector screen but mutes the video. THere is no way to bypass it or disengage the OSD from the front screen (I wish they could fix this. I am certain it must be a bug). So, I have a simple 5" LCD screen in my theater chair fed from the Halcro to see the status (this screen gets its info from composite video feeds from my sources to the Halcro and from the Halcro to this small screen). This would work for an alert but it is is only viewable if I open a part of the chair to view it (it is too bright to leave on during a film).

Thaks for the suggestions!

Perhaps you can do custom text on the Radiance.

I thought of that... I'll ask Lumagen.

Is it a simple process? And what exactly would they call it? Just 'Custom Text'?

I wasn't aware you could sdo this with some RS-232 devices...

Even more simple (for me) would simply send the 'Chime' sound from my DSC out to the Lumagen for a generic activation on screen when a door bell is rung, a window is openned or a door openned.

Great suggestion.

I'm gonna contact Lumagen on this.


Thanks!

Also,

If my panel does NOT have X-10 built in, is it something my insataller can add to it?

Thanks!

It should be just as simple as issuing any other rs-232 command. Just ask them for a list of thier serial commands and check to see if there is any one that lets you place text on the OSD. This is how it is described in the Anthem's serial command literature.

P1zxA: display a message "A" on the main zone OSD and front panel LCD line x=1,2(1=line 1,2=line 2)

Fantastic...Thanks! I'll keep informed.

This is how we did it.

[Link: remotecentral.com]

With a relay between the doorbell and the xantech piece. When the doorbell is pressed an IR trigger is sent into the RP6 from the xantech piece. The house had Radio Ra and a dimmer would flash.