I rigged a 110v relay to the I/O switch 1 to monitor for GFCI trips and get the Apex to email me if one of them trips. Actually did 3 in series so I can monitor 3 GFCI circuits together on Switch1. I'll try to take pictures of this later, it was really neat. I actually have 4 circuits in my tank room but there's no point in monitoring the same circuit that the Apex is on until I get some kind of battery backup for the unit (and maybe a small UPS for my cable modem and network hub - that way a whole house power outage can still result in a notification email).
Next up I'm hoping to get some of the floor flood sensors and connect them to switch2. Something like this that has normally closed contacts:
http://www.specialtyalarms.com/site/...product/80-519 ... should be able to be wired in series and then a bunch can be monitored using the same switch.
(I know I could just get the flood module but this way would be cheaper and .. kinda more fun/interesting..)
I DIY'd my own breakout box. I'm not sure I'd recommend going that way to anyone else. You can build it for less than you can buy it, but unless you have a mini-DIN 8 pin *cable* to work with, odds are you can only get the cable connector and then you have to solder the wires to the pins and unless you're really good at soldering in tiny scale it can be a bit of a challenge to get a clean job of it. (You can mail order the cables pretty easy though ... all I could find locally were the cable connectors though .. no brick and mortar storefront has a mini-DIN 8 cable these days! Found a few places willing to make one up custom, but that's not the same as off-the-shelf IMO..)