The title of this book suggests that it is only for BeagleBone owners. In fact, the hardware is designed in such a way that it will work with any single-board computer with I/O capability. So if you are a Raspberry Pi, Arduino, or Gumstix owner, don't be put off.

This book is for you too. You will have to write your own software, but we will provide all the source code.

This book is also for anyone who is interested in alarm systems and how they work. It is also for hobbyists and basement tinkerers who love to build things.

As for skills, if you want to build the hardware, you will need some basic soldering skills. All the parts are through-hole variety, so basic skills are all that is required.

When it comes to software, you can just run it as it is. If you want to modify code, then you will require knowledge of Java and integrated development environments.

We will also have a working 4 GB image file that you can download and burn onto a USD card, and be up and running in minutes.