For those of you, like me, who are either replacing an old, wired security system or bought a house with one already installed, it’s quite easy to take advantage of some of those existing in-wall wires. In the case of my new Aeon Multi-sensor, I discovered upon removing the wired motion sensor that the wire is actually a 4-wire bundle. Since the Aeon Multi-sensor is powered by batteries or USB, and USB also happens to be a 4-wire bundle, I tried hardwiring the sensor as opposed to using batteries. I cut a USB cable in half and connected one half to the wire at the sensor and the other half to where that wire terminates at the old security system hub. In retrospect, only 2 of the 4 USB wires need to be connected; the red wire for the power and the black for ground. Then simply plug the USB cable into a power outlet (which should be nearby since the old system was likely plugged in an outlet). Now I have a Z-wave motion sensor and I don’t have to worry about the batteries.
This trick should work for any Thing that is powered by USB. For example, the FotrezZ siren (replacing a hardwired siren in the same location) should work the same way.