MCYSEKA-Maritime Cyber Security Knowledge Archive

I have had both experience with a hardwire Vista 20P system at an older house and also the 2nd Generation Ring Security setup in a finished home.

For the purpose of a finished home, the Ring system would have been way easier to set up than a hardwired system. While the selection of sensor on the Ring system is limited and somewhat overpriced (especially the glass break sensor) it was trivial with a bit of soldering to convert the Ring contact sensors to work with a Honeywell flex guard glass break sensor by placing the glass break sensor in series with the reed switch. This approach could be used to integrate any sensor into the Ring system.

The mounting solution for the base station out of the box isn’t great, but also easily solved with a polycarbonate housing that bolts down into a stud with tamper resistant screws.

Finally, while the alarm that comes with the base station is not very loud, it’s also fairly easy to take apart the base station and wire in an external horn speaker.

The Ring system provides phone notifications, email notifications and what not whereas the Vista did not. Furthermore, the overall integration is just much easier. The base station has battery backup and falls back to GSM if internet goes down.

Sure, out of the box, it kind of sucks, especially the mechanical mounting solution for the base station but it doesn’t take all that much ingenuity to take care of some of the drawbacks. The way the average homeowner installs them may not result in a great system but that’s more of an installation problem rather than a fundamental problem with the technology.