Hey all – I’m having a hard time finding a DIY home security that’ll best fit my needs and thought I’d ask the community for some help. Some additional context: We own a 1 story house in Minneapolis, MN. Our detached garage was broken into this fall, despite reinforcing the service door, and valuable bikes were stolen, despite being anchored to the ground… The overhead door wasn’t touched, and I’ve secured the door to the trolley, so hopefully that’s not an easy attack vector.

As for the house itself, we’ve got 2 entries, both with fiberglass doors & Yale Assure deadbolts. Windows have vent latches so it’d be very difficult to break in that way. Also got some vicious security cats – they’d aggressively snuggle an intruder into compliance

Besides fortifying the garage a bit I’m hoping a security system will help deter thefts. Here’s what I think I’m looking for

• Components:
  • Door/window ajar sensor
  • Camera/doorbell for entryway, and interior of garage
  • Motion detector light (could be ‘dumb’)
• Functionality
  • Some Google/Nest home compatible
  • Sensor batteries last 1 year or longer, provide app notification, cheap batteries (CR2032)
  • Remote camera monitoring
  • Video capture for motion detection is a nice to have – there are tons of rabbits in our back yard and our neighbors dog is in our yard all the time and our neighbor picks up his poop.. seeing the occasional person cutting through our yard would probably do more to increase my anxiety than help improve security so I could easily be convinced it’s not important or maybe just for the video doorbell
• Other requirements
  • Decent data privacy for cloud services – probably no Amazon Ring
  • Some offline functionality – hate idea of a company going under and losing service, or local alarms not working in a power outage
  • Under $1000 all said and done (8-10 sensors, 2 cameras, alarms, hub)
  • Low monthly fees for basic service, or at least a low cost option that doesn’t suck (<$20/month)
    • Remote camera monitoring is nice; don’t think I need 3rd party 24/7 monitoring like ADT

Does this seem practical? What systems would folks recommend?