Electronics engineer Steve Rodgers has designed a drop-in alternative for outdated Honeywell or DSC alarm panel boards, constructed round an Espressif ESP32 and utilizing ESPHome so as to add current alarm methods to Residence Assistant setups — no cloud service required.

“I had a Honeywell alarm panel and an EyezOn EnvisaLink to interface with HomeAssistant, nevertheless it relied on the cloud, and the Honeywell panel did not transmit data to the EyezOn board when a sensor was restored to the non-faulted state,” Rodgers explains. “[So] I designed this board to utterly change a Honeywell Vista 20 alarm panel.”

The eight-zone alarm panel mimics most, however not all, of the options of the unique, barring solely help for arming and disarming by way of keypad and central station monitoring. In change, it offers an Espressif ESP32 microcontroller designed to host the ESPHome firmware and combine right into a Residence Assistant or appropriate residence automation system.

The panel features a built-in charger for an unique lead-acid battery backup, eight supervised zones expandable to 16, a 12V siren output, built-in temperature sensor, full fuse safety, and connectors for zone growth and entry to the I2C bus for extra sensors. Wired sensors linked to the panel present up in Residence Assistant as binary sensors, Rodgers explains, prepared for triggering alerts or different automations.

Rodgers is promoting the panel as a mostly-assembled package — needing two switches including by the top person, as a method of swerving the necessity for FCC certification as an entire system — by way of his Tindie retailer for $159, although it comes with a warning: “The controller is shipped with out firmware which might connect with your Wi-Fi community,” Rodgers explains. “It can require some firmware programming and electrical information to efficiently implement.”

Residence Assistant YAML configuration information for the board can be found on GitHub, for each the inventory eight-zone board and an expanded 16-zone model.