That sounds great. Thanks for the suggestion and for conferring with your friends.
But I think my main issue right now is the power. I could maybe skip the two wires (of the four shown) that are supposed to be for interconnectivity. But going by my BRK alarm specs on the label shown in my previous picture posted here, there is an AC power input wire, and a DC power input wire to the alarm. I am not sure which, if any, wire is supposed to be neutral when installing a new alarm.