when to use a second pi?

[sion]

Hi All. Im fairly new to domoticz, just looking for a bit of advice / opinions.

I set up a Pi2 with domoticz about a month ago, initialy to control my Philips hue lights with sensors - which works really well, and also to take control of the lights when we are away from home.
At the moment i am using geofencing for this, but it is not working well as we hav very poor mobile signal in our area.

We have an existing wired alarm system in the house, and i am planning to connect domoticz to this, via pi face digital.
- connect to the "set" terminal so domoticz knows when the alarm is armed, and to take control of the lights.
- connect to the bell terminal, so as to flash lights when alarm sounds, and also to receive notifications.
- connect to some of the zones, to use the existing pir's to trigger events when we are home.

I see a lot of people seem to have 2 or more pi's running together, and want sure wether i shoud be doing the or not?

Existing pi is connected by lan.
has RFX-trx controling sensors, and wall sockets.
connects to philips hue.

The alarm system is to far away to wire to, so my options are:
option 1:
Move the existing pi & RFXcom downstairs into the cupboard with the alarm.
Add pi-face to connect to alarm.
add wifi controler ( its too far from the router to wire too ).

option 2:
Get a second pi, add pi-face and wifi to this one, and run it as a slave..

Im asuming i can power the pi from the burglar alarms power ( through a little adapter ) and take advantage of the UPS in any power outs.

Any advice / opinions would be very welcome..
- 1 or 2 pi?
- is there much difference in pi face digital, and pi face digital2 - other than the shape?
- Does domoticz on pi run ok over wifi? the signal at the planned location is good - i run an apple tv in the same cupboard no probs.

Thanks,
Sion.

[nayr]

i like distributing slaves out, that way they can run scripts locally and are independent from eachother.. this way when a slave takes a crap all your automation dont go with it.

run my master on nice hardware in a nice secure environment, slaves are put in harsher more accessible areas.. like garage, under a fish tank and in a closet by the front door.

dunno bout pi's much, but the new pi2 and the native support in domoticz is tempting me.. if the beaglebone and other arm boxes could get some GPIO love I'd be one happy camper.

[nigels0]

Slightly off topic, I'm also looking to connect my wired alarm to domoticz though I'm connecting via the serial printer port most alarms have. Using a 12v to 5v sub power converter and a pi, I plan to send via wifi the printer output across to a listener app on the main pi running domoticz and using that to inform domoticz what is going on.

With regard to using two pis, I myself do and they work well. Moving the 1st pi into a cupboard may limit the range of the RX433 so probably worth testing before rewriting everything...