Building a Home Security System with BeagleBone

by Bill Pretty

Overview

One of the best kept secrets of the security industry is just how simple the monitoring hardware actually is - BeagleBone has all the computing power you need to build yourself an extremely sophisticated access control, alarm panel, and home automation and network intrusion-detection system. Security companies make a fortune each year by charging exorbitant fees to their customers. You will learn how easy it is to make an alarm system with Beaglebone.

A company-maintained-and-monitored alarm system has its place - your dear old mum is probably not going to be creating her own system any time soon. But if you are reading this book, you are probably a builder or a hobbyist with all the skills required to do it yourself. With Building a Home Security System with BeagleBone, you will learn everything you need to know to develop your own state-of-the-art security system, all for less than a year's worth of monitoring charges from your local alarm company!

You will start by building and testing your hardware and open source software on an experimenter's prototype board before progressing to more complex systems. You will then learn how to test your new creations in a modular fashion and begin to utilize BeagleBone. Once your system is built and tested, you will install some of the professional-grade sensors used in modern alarm systems and learn how to use them. You will also discover how to extend your alarm system in a variety of different ways. The only limit will be your imagination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783559619
Publisher:	Packt Publishing
Publication date:	12/17/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	120
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Bill began his career in electronics in the early 80's with a small telecom start-up company that would eventually become a large multinational corporation. He left there to pursue a career in commercial aviation in the north of Canada. From there he joined the Ontario Center for Microelectronics, a provincially funded research and development center. Bill left there for a career in the military as a civilian contractor at what was then called the Defense Research Establishment, Ottawa. That began a career which was to span the next 25 years, and still continues today.

Over the years, Bill has acquired extensive knowledge in the field of technical security, and he started his own company in 2010. That company is called William Pretty Security Inc. and provides support in the form of research and development to various law enforcement and private security agencies. While this is Bill's first book, he has published and presented a number of white papers on the subject of technical security. Bill was also a guest presenter for a number of years at the Western Canada Technical Conference, a law enforcement only conference held every year in western Canada. A selection of these papers is available for download from his website.