A bit of an investment at the outset, and will require you to get your hands a bit dirty, but I think in the long run it's a more economical (and cool) system, but going with a home automation system like SmartThings or Insteon will allow you to roll your own system which whatever features or monitoring you'd like. AFAIK, the only thing you will lose out on is the remote monitoring. However, you could always get the system to send an SMS to yourself/family/whoever to put them on alert when things go sideways.
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