Ask Slashdot: A Cheap, DIY Home Security and Surveillance System?

scubamage writes "Six weeks ago, my home was broken into while my fiance and I were at work. Two laptops were stolen, an iPad, a power brick, a safe (complete with several years worth of taxes, my birth certificate, and old copies of my driver's license), a digital SLR, and several other costly items. We are now dealing with an attorney because the homeowner's insurance is fighting us on a number of items and we're not backing down. It has been a nightmare. However, we've now noticed that someone has been visiting our house during the day. There has been garbage left sitting on our back porch table, so its unlikely to have blown there. We've also seen footprints in our garden that are not there in the morning. Our neighborhood is essentially empty during the day, and we want to know who is on our property while we're not. If we're really lucky, reporting it to the police could recover some of our property. My fiance has asked me to assemble a home security system that is motion activated, and both notifies us of an entry, as well as records video or rapid HD stillframes when sensing motion. The goal is to do this cheaply and more effectively than going with a private security company like ADT (who, consequently, our police department told us to ignore due to the incredibly high rate of false alarms). We've already gotten the dog and the gun, so we have those bases covered. What suggestions do you have on setting up home security systems, and what have you done to build one in the past?"

Comments

Reputation

[Stargoat]

You have the gun, and you have the dog. All you really need now is a reputation.

Re:Reputation

[idontgno]

Well, they have the gun and the dog. That way, when the crims steal the gun, they can shoot the dog on the way out.

Seriously. For simple unattended-property burglary, a gun is just an attractive target. And most dogs will just wag their tails all friendly-like at the burglar as they come and go.

Re:Reputation

[sco08y]

Assuming you live in Florida, start by chasing down passers-by with your car and shooting them with your gun. Given TV interviews afterwards in which you claim that you were simply defending yourself.

It might take some kind of vast racial conspiracy in order to make sure the police release you without charges. You'll have to get together with all the other Hispanic Democrats to pull this off.

If you do it right, though, you should be able to get enraged mobs of idiots to attack some random elderly couple whose son happens to have the same middle name as you!

Re:Reputation

[ubrgeek]

Middle of the night:
"knock, knock."
"Who is it?" as you rack a round in your pistol grip Mossberg 500, the process of which makes a very distinctive noise.
"Sorry, wrong address."
The comment about the blaring alarm scaring people off is true. As is the sound of the shotgun being racked.

Never mind 5,000 rounds a year, etc. On the off chance you have to fire after answering the door (a) you're firing from less than four feet away and (b) you're opening fire with pellets. So long as you don't try and play Terminator and use one hand to fire, you're going to hit something ... them, the walls, whatever (NEVER move to fire a weapon unless you can put your hands on every member of your family first. Do that and then advance to the intruder. Secure the family and then secure the house.) The sound of the blast will do a lot to persuade the bad guy to take off. Oh, and the pistol grip makes it much more likely you'll be able to get the first shot off first; you can "fire from the hip" instead of taking the time to raise the weapon to your shoulder (not to mention that you don't have to step back from the door to raise the weapon).

Take the weapon out to the woods and put a dozen rounds through it. Take your family. You'll get to feel the kick you're going to experience and almost more to the point, the sound. Should you need/feel the need to fire another shot during an intrusion, if you've never heard a shotgun go off while you're holding it, in my experience you are more likely to pause as you recover from the shock of the sound.

Re:Reputation

[SpockLogic]

You have the gun, and you have the dog. All you really need now is a reputation.

No, no, no ... get rid of the gun and get another dog.

You need a big scary dog to frighten off the burglars and a small yappy dog to bark and wake up the big dog.

Re:Reputation

[CAIMLAS]

The reputation you want is "do not fuck with us or you will reap the whirlwind."

Physical security takes many forms; the dog, gun, and security cameras all serve various parts of the whole picture.

As for your current situation: you were scouted out and target over a period of days, weeks, or months. You were probably hit by fairly brazen professionals. You will probably not be hit again for a number of reasons:

* you are now more alert due to having been victimized
* you are now more likely to be better prepared
* they were thorough and you have nothing of value in the house which they wanted. Presumably, it was not a quick snatch and grab due to the safe being gone, too.
* you are more likely to alert your neighbors to be alert

Alert your neighbors, if you have any. Having a strong community is the best defense against these things. Our neighborhood has a nosey codger who is quite vigilant about things like this: if someone doesn't look like they're supposed to be there, he confronts them. People home with no vehicles in the drive is usually a pretty good indication if there's no garage.

I would also suggest not leaving unsecured arms in the house if you are not normally home. If they know you're not home and have firearms, you are more likely to be robbed by serious criminals (and then have to deal with all the paperwork, headache, and guilt of stolen firearms). On the other hand, stolen firearms are fairly easy to track unless they're intended for use in other crimes.

The most likely thing is that you won't be violated again in this fashion for some time, though it pays to be vigilant in security of mind. As for the topic at hand: newegg has occasional deals in the under-$500 range (saw an 8 camera unit for about $350 recently) for decent home security systems which do what you request. They use mini-BNC and the like, I believe.

Re:Reputation

[Will.Woodhull]

I too have concerns about the gun. Unless you and your fiancee are going to put in the time at the shooting range to get good with it (about 500 rounds each), and the monthly practice necessary to keep your skill levels up, the gun only increases your risks without providing any particular benefit. Unless, of course, you are talking about a light, short barrel shotgun (20 gauge or less), which is the only good point and shoot self defense tool for the home (no need to aim the thing-- easy to shoot from the hip. Effective range when loaded appropriately with pheasant shot is more than a room length, few worries about over penetration, will stop any aggressor who is not wearing body armor, maybe without even killing him-- saves you on lawyer costs. Mossberg has made a plastic stock 410 gauge 3 round pump action, which would be more than sufficient.)

Another point: you are talking about using lethal force in the face of property crimes. That kind of escalation suggests that any decisions you make now about defensive strategies should be reviewed in about three months when you are not reacting to the heat of the moment.

My pertinent background: living for nearly 30 years in a rural area beyond effective law enforcement patrols, but with a nearby freeway and intermittent periods of high transient crimes. German shepherds with loud barks were an excellent deterrent and a good friends and companions. However they do need several hours of attention daily, including walks in the country for exercise and in the town for socialization skills.

My background with firearms: a 30-06 as a very good deer rifle, a 22 pistol to deal with the occasional varmint-- skunks moving in under the barn; a raccoon who learned how to get into the garbage can, that kind of thing. A double barrel 20 gauge bird gun: I never had the opportunity to really learn how to bird hunt, but it was the gun that I kept in reach near the bed.

Now I don't live in a situation where I can keep a dog properly, and now I rely on a cell phone as a deterrent to crime: dialing a cell phone is much more effective than firearms ever were. Just look at the way crime rates have tumbled as cell phones have become more common. The correlation is too strong for there not to be a connection.

Re:Reputation

[SydShamino]

No no, you have it all wrong. Our neighbors, who were burgled last year, had one of their guns stolen. That uplifted it to a much more serious crime (at least here in Texas), and they got police attention until the guilty party (a Mexican gang from the other side of town, who just picked their house at random) was busted.

Here's how you do it:
1. Get a gun. Register said gun.
2. Pour molten solder into the barrel of said gun.
3. Leave said gun in plain sight in your home.
4. If your house is burgled, report your gun stolen immediately. The police will pay attention.
5. Have no fear that your gun will be used to hurt yourself or anyone else, except whoever tries to use it.

Re:Reputation

[hairyfeet]

That is why you need a MOM...Mean Old Mutt. Don't go for that overbred crap, go to the local shelter and you'll find plenty of 'em that will be damned good security. my ma's place was constantly getting gas stolen as well as any easy to carry items and she was at her wits end and starting to get scared. As luck would have it what would be scavenging in the ditch as i was visiting but an obviously part wolf MOM. I said "Hell there is you answer ma...hey there buddy, want a burger?" and the kids quickly gave him the name of Jackie.

Old Jackie didn't take long at all to decide that was HIS property and to learn which humans was allowed and which humans weren't and sure enough not 2 weeks later I get called out by ma, when I get there she is feeding Jackie a big plate of eggs with bacon bits. When i asked what was going on one of the kids held up a piece of bloody jeans and said "Whoever that gas thief was they screamed REAL good when old Jackie tore into them!" and when ma got out there she saw old Jackie chasing down some punk who jumped in an old hoopty and tore out of there and she found a gas can that wasn't hers.

Sadly old Jackie passed away a couple of years back, one day he just got up and wandered off into the woods, never to return. I'd seen that behavior before with part wolves, its like they know its time and they just go find a tree somewhere and lay down under it and die, but lucky for us old Jackie had given us a couple of pups with a stray female so now we have Chubs, which looks like his wolf daddy mixed with a rottweiler.

So get ya a mean old mutt, pups are too willing to please to be good against strangers, a mature mutt can be VERY territorial and will learn its place DAMNED quick and if you get a stray or one from the shelters they are damned grateful to have a home. Give 'em a little TLC, along with some scraps and rewards when they do well and watch how quickly that dog learns its job. If you need advice on breeds anything with wolf, collie, or sheppard is a good place to start. I've talked to cop buddies and been told how many times they've dealt with idiots that were too fucking stupid to back down from a gun but they STFU and obeyed when faced with a dog, staring at a mess of fur and fangs is primal whereas they act like they are Chuck Norris when they see a gun, so if you want a gun that's fine but a mean old mutt makes for a better first line of defense IMHO.

Been there, done that.. Here's your plan.

[brokenin2]

We had our cars getting broken into and did basically the same thing (minus gun).

We have a linux file server at home, so what I ended up doing was getting a V4L
compatible video capture card off ebay (I got a 16 input card for $80). 4 port
capture cards are common and cheap. Just make sure it's compatible with linux.

Then go to dealextreme.com, or I think they're also at dx.com now. There you can
get cameras, and the video balun's to make it simple to use cat 5 to run your
cameras. A camera is about $20 for a decent night vision one, and the balun set
(8 baluns to run 4 cameras) were about $25.

Once you've got your hardware all set up, you can use either "motion" or "zoneminder"
for the actual surveilence. Both will do what you want. I use motion, but
zoneminder is a little more polished in the UI department.

Finally, set up an rsync script or other mirror software to get those files off site
in case they actually try to steal your server.

Re:Been there, done that.. Here's your plan.

[brokenin2]

I repeat:
Finally, set up an rsync script or other mirror software to get those files off site
in case they actually try to steal your server.

If you have triggers set up right, you'll have the video of the person walking right
up to your server to steal it.

Re:Been there, done that.. Here's your plan.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got mine set to email pictures where motion was detected to an account I have dedicated for that. By the time they uplug the server, their picture is already sitting on a remote server, waiting for me to forward to the police.

Re:Been there, done that.. Here's your plan.

[keeboo]

I live in medium sized building (16 floors) and we had a similar dilemma.

We bought one of those cheap chinese OEM CCTV DVRs (sold under several brands worldwide, the real source is a chinese company called Dahua), plus 8 cameras.
Notes:
Considering its price, the DVR works quite well, and has decent quality/framerate (30 fps / camera, 352x240). The bad thing is that the remote client software (optional usage) is Windows-only and buggy as hell.
We considered a desktop PC with a multi-channel vide capture card (it's far more flexible), but it's messier to install/maintain (bigger, with fans sucking dirt 24/7, someone may be tempted to occasionaly use as a desktop PC etc).

We installed the DVR in the entrance room, so the doorman/watcher (however it's called in English) can see what is going on AND we have all the activity recorded in case of need.
Problem: What if, for example, someone steps in with a gun and blows up the DVR? The videos are gone, and a periodic backup will not prevent this, since the most relevant video happened mere instants before, thus DVR-copy only. -- So, for the worst-case scenario (and right the most valuable one to have recorded video), the DVR seemed useless (the DVR has a built-in sync mechanism which is very unreliable, so it's worthless).

The dillema was solved with a free software called Tanidvr (Unixoid_OS-specific, command-line, and specific to that DVR family). Basically, we bought a computer to be used as a realtime backup server, installed in a locked room in a different floor. We also have a (intranet-only) HTTP server in order to easily download the videos, if necessary.
So, no matter what happens to the DVR, we have the video data up to the exact time (delay <1 second) the machine was destroyed.
A backup script was created for video fragmentation, and to recompress the H.264 stream to fit more days into the HD (with a quality/size the DVR is unable to provide).

Well, it works for us.

Zoneminder

[stox]

http://www.zoneminder.com/

It integrates well with MythTV, too.

Frontpoint

[BaverBud]

We were broken into about 5 weeks ago. I originally considered Frontpoint about 5 months ago, but we kept putting it off. It's the only security company that had mediocre to good reviews consistently.

They have a few options - what you're looking for is their "ultimate" version, which includes cameras. It streams online I believe, and you can turn on/off the security system from your phone or their web page.

They do not send out a rep to do installation, instead they ship the system to you (they'll probably upgrade you to next day shipping for free if you mention you just had a burglary) and you set it up yourself. It took me about 15 minutes to set up, although I had to re-glue some of the door sensors.

When you call, or email, their sales agents don't try to upsel you. They work with what you want, and try to assess your needs based on how you describe your house. If you want an extra sensor for something, they are happy to give it to you - but they will want to know why, and if they don't think it's needed, they'll try to talk you out of it. I had the feeling they actually cared about my interests, and not selling me more equipment.

They also follow up on any feedback you provide, and actively try to resolve issues. I'm really happy with them. They use alarm.com for monitoring.They also have additional styles of sensors that the average joe doesn't care about (ones that you install in the door, rather than putting on the outside of the door - i.e. invisible), but you need to ask. They try to keep it simple.

Re:Steal someones

[idontgno]

Steal someones 'secured by' signs from their front yard

Maybe you can tack the sign up on your wrought-irony porch railing.

I suggest

[NEDHead]

Since you have the gun already, landmines for the garden are the obvious next step

Re:Don't be a tightwad

[schitso]

Right, because some in-and-out trained chimps are who you should trust with your home security.

Get something like a Honeywell Lynx Plus. It's wireless, easy to install, and easy to set up. You don't even need it monitored--the sound of the panel blaring would send any burglar packing. As for CCTV, you can get some dead cheap camera/DVR deals on Newegg, but don't expect awesome quality or lifespan.

Hunting Camera

[dagoalieman]

Get a hunting trail camera. Takes pics on an SD card. Not networked, but is designed to be outside and it should get you the information you seek relatively cheaply.

Get a girlfriend.

[Anonymous Coward]

All the surveillance you can take.... Oh wait, you said "cheap".... never mind...

Logitech delivers a surprisingly good turnkey solu

[unixhero]

Logitech delivevers a surprisingly good turnkey solution! I use it in my company, we have 20 stores and lately there has been a surge in robberies of our stores. After we got these cameras set up, with no extra hacking, it delivers perfect video with sound and can of course be motion activated. We have sendt the video captures to the national TV station (Norwegian TV2) and it got aired nationwide. The quality was that good that they chose to use our videos. I would not bother create a hacked-together just because these things Just Work. Normally I wouldn't trust a Logitech product to do something this important, but they are very good and reliable. No problems, we've use them daily at 20 locations with no problems and no hazzles. I am not affiliated with Logitech, I just really like a solution that works perfectly and want to share it with others.

IP Cameras

[Above]

IP cameras have become quite cheap, depending on your needs. If you get PoE models they are also far easier to run than traditional cameras, as a single CatE cable can get the job done. I've set up small systems a number of places including my house, and it all works quite well and easily. While you can go the open source route, I found the easiest way is with some Mac software. You can even do it without network DVR software and use cameras that capture to onboard SD cards. I find that inconvenient, but it can be a good backup if your cameras are mounted out of reach but your server isn't.

Checkout, in no particular order:

• Vivotek
• Axis
• Panasonic
• Y-Cam

There's a product for every need. Cheap, $50 indoor lit-room only solutions to $2000 pan/tilt/zoom IR illuminated outdoor vandal proof units.

TrendNet makes affordable PoE switches. 10/100 is fine, an individual camera stream is maybe 2Mbps for a high res stream.

I use SecuritySpy on a Mac. Even watching 8 cameras it uses

Place cameras where you can get good shots of faces as they come through doors. Maybe one of your driveway or street in front to get a car. They won't stop the break in, although visible cameras outside may be a deterrent, but they will give you a fighting chance of catching the person who did it.

Oh, and get a dog with a loud bark. Most robbers don't want to find out if it is a small dog or big dog!

Re:IP Cameras

[Darth_brooks]

Trendnet has a good supply of cameras as well. They're cheap, but I can say from experience the 110w, 121w, and 312w all do a perfectly decent job. They're not the best thing in the world, but they just work. Trendnet's "monitoring software" is crap however.

640 x 480 cameras don't get good faces. Even megapixel shots from any more than a couple feet away aren't that great. A better bet is to cover vehicle approaches. No one is going to steal your TV on foot, no one is going to loot ten minutes worth of your stuff on foot, and cops have a much better chance of spotting "Two white males 1998 red ford ranger with a dent on the left side of the bed" than they have of spotting "black male with a mustache and an earring in his left ear wearing a blue shirt." The guy in the shirt will have a chance to change shirts before the cops even show up at your door. The guys in the truck are going to use that truck in another break in.

In my experience, the two guys doing home invasions (one guy goes in, one guy keeps the car running and sits on lookout.) will hit a neighborhood a few times before things get hot. If you can ID the car, cops will have a *MUCH* better chance at nabbing the perps. I passed a couple frames I managed to get of a car that was involved at a break in near my home to the county sheriff. The cops were thrilled to have that more than a description, as it gave them a much narrower focus.

Re:Gun?

[DCFusor]

Get a concealed carry license and keep the gun on you (obviously, learn to use it well, that part can be fun). It won't get stolen. I live in a place where just about everyone has guns - it's a tool for almost daily use out here in farm country. There are some criminals that live here, but there's no crime here. It's too damn dangerous as they might not get the expected "due process" if caught, and they know it. I was once burgled on several days successively when I lived in the DC area. Kids even made a camp-fire on my kitchen floor. Stole onyx and marble chess pieces to skip on the pond, and coin collections to buy cokes. The cops said, well, it's just kids - not much we can do, we don't have time to stake out your home even though it's been burgled 3 times in three days at roughly known times of day. Sigh. I told them - I hope it's YOUR kid, because tomorrow, I'm going to park my car 5 blocks away, sneak back here, and sit behind the front door with my .44 magnum and blow away the first thing through the door. Next day - the cops showed up. It WAS one of their kids, along with others, and the cop, realising where all that cool stuff his kid was dragging home, figured it all out and busted them. Sometimes they need a reminder to do their job. It worked that time anyway.

You have to separate issues

[jtownatpunk.net]

First, DOCUMENT YOUR POSSESSIONS!!!

Take pictures that show model numbers and serial numbers. Keep a list of serial numbers. Keep receipts. Register the devices with the manufacturer as additional proof of ownership. I'm sure your insurance agent told you this when you set up the policy.

A surveillance system would have done nothing to prove the value of what you lost. On video, a $6000 laptop looks exactly the same as a $350 laptop.

As to the surveillance system, there are a number of consumer systems available at a reasonable price. Anywhere from a single camera up to 16-camera systems. $400-500 will buy you a ready-to-roll 8 camera system with DVR and remote monitoring, including iphone/android phone video feed. Not pro-quality stuff but decent. Just make sure you post "This area is under video surveillance" signs at the entrances.

I don't think I'd bother with a monitored alarm system, though I'd certainly consider one that makes a lot of noise and flashes a lot of strobes. The fact that a system is monitored isn't what deters theft. It's the noise and attention that is drawn to the scene that chases them off.

Re:Don't be a tightwad

[TWX]

Do you know how a monitored security system works?

I do, I work for an organization with about 100 sites which I have to go in and out of, including during hours when I have to disarm a site.

The security company, by and large, doesn't really care about the brand of system in the site, they can interface to many, so long as they're commercial products. In our case, only one door into a secured area won't immediately set the alarm off, that one door has a delay before the alarm goes off, in which one disarms the system. The attendant at the security company gets an alarm on their computer screen when a site goes off, and they call the police if they don't receive a call within a minute or so of the actual alarm going off, even if one disarms the security system post-alarm. One has to know who to call and has to have a code word to prevent the authorities from being called.

In some residential installations, the security company will call a phone number on the account and ask for the code word instead of waiting for a call.

As far as burglars go, without some kind of monitoring, a burglar will still have a few minutes to grab whatever they can, even while the thing is blaring, as it's unlikely that the neighbors will call the police until the alarm gets annoying and they figure that no one is around to shut it off.

There are also fairly inexpensive ($500-$1000) camera systems with eight cameras (expandable to sixteen) at Costco that use PoE cameras. One has to run Ethernet wiring to locations for the cameras, but the advantage of needing only one battery backup for the main DVR/switch outweighs the use of separate power at each camera, in my humble opinion. I'm considering a system like this, but I know that I'll probably spend another $500 wiring for it, with the horizontal cable, the patch cords at each end, the conduit pipe for the outdoor cameras, the patch panel, the snap-in connectors, and the like, and that's assuming that I can coax an old battery backup back to life with a new set of SLAs for it.

There's no good cheap solution, in my opinion. If one is in a house, signing up for monitoring for a certain amount of time may yield a free system for detection.

Re:Don't be a tightwad

[mea_culpa]

99% of the time a very loud siren will stop the theif from spending much time in your property. Even if you had the most expensive ADT setup it still takes minutes for police to do anything about it anyway.
You can pay ADT $45/mo for 5 years to install $200 worth of equipment and feel better. But you can get better results installing your own system and hooking up with something like NextAlarm for $17/mo no contract and get email/SMS notification when anything goes wrong, check event history such as who armed and disarmed and even get SMS when your housekeeper disarms/rearms, etc.
This combined with a cheap Lorex/Swann net connected DVR system from Costco that lets you instantly see 8/16 channels of video from your smartphone will be more than adequate.

There is a small learning curve when programming your own alarm panel, but since you are asking Slashdot, you probably know how to google already. Hopefully.

Re:Don't be a tightwad

[LifesABeach]

I've always perferred using a Resuce Panther.

Re:Don't be a tightwad

[cusco]

Blue Iris is a video monitoring system. Fairly close to professional grade, and free. Large selection of IP cameras available. I was going to recommend this if no one else had (I work in the physical security industry).

If you want to see who's wandering around your yard get a decent quality IP camera and go to the trouble of configuring it. I very highly recommend Axis cameras (and very highly recommend AGAINST Sony cameras), probably the 216FD, or the M3304 or 216MFD if you need megapixel resolution. Expect to pay >$500 if you go that route, but they're worth it and when you're done you can sell them again for a decent price. Log into the camera, set your IP address, and set up motion detection. You'll see how to do it, it's pretty straight-forward. Try to make sure that your motion detection area doesn't include any bushes or anything else that moves in the wind. If you get an Axis camera you can download the Axis Camera Station recorder for free, which is a nice, basic video recording system that is pretty easy to configure (easier than Blue Iris, even). Set it to record continually to a hard drive you don't use for anything else (a cheap external USB drive works fine), since megapixel video sucks up drive space at a pretty phenomenal rate. Three or four images per second should be sufficient, and the camera will raise motion alarms that make it easier to review the recordings. Put it inside a window or under an eave, you don't want to deal with the cost for weatherizing something that's just temporary, and since any of the cameras I mentioned are POE you just need a CAT-5 cable and your system is set.

Re:Don't be a tightwad

[ozmanjusri]

If they're looking to catch the daytime lurker (and likely robber), I'd imagine you'd want it to be silent.

I use MythTV as a PVR, so adding MythZoneMinder and a few IPCams was pretty simple. It sends me a text message when one of the zones is breached, and I can look at the images or the live feed from my phone or work computer. One of the cameras is a PTZ, and the only time I got to use it in anger, turning it to face the kids who were about to tag my mailbox got them to change their minds. If something's happening that really concerns me, I can call the police direct or ask one or several of my neighbours to help out.

Re:In fact, you want them to steal your server

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have a gmail account full of pictures of you whackin it?
That's gross dude!

Re:Don't be a tightwad

[drfreak]

That figures for a city. When I lived in San Francisco I had neighbors which would trip my alarm for fun and quickly made the cops tired of showing up. This is a troublesome catch-22 because when your system actually catches a wolf, nobody cares because they are sick of hearing it. I think in these modern times, an internet-attached system is the way to go because it can notify the owner and give them real-time video and data they need to make an informed decision about whether to actually set off a visible/audble alarm and/or notify the police. Everyone hates false positives!

Re:Don't be a tightwad

[black6host]

Regarding CCTV, as others have pointed out, there are a million and a half analog CCTV camera manufacturers, many for

Hmmm, somebody must have stolen his computer mid sentence.....

Re:Don't be a tightwad

[cayenne8]

I'm surprised one of the first things not to be mentioned so far, is the old open source standby ZoneMinder .

I've long wanted to put one of those systems together....looks to be pretty well supported, and works with a pretty large amount of equipment...