A camera that fits in your door’s existing peephole, so you can trigger a photo or video when there is motion outside the door. I currently have a sensor outside the door, but would like to know what triggered it (delivery/mailman? Salesman? Someone trying to break in?)
A doorbell. I know it sounds a bit silly, but it would be nice to be able to trigger actions on the doorbell like pausing/muting my Sonos speakers, etc. I could actually then use my Sonos system as the bell.
I saw the suggestion for open power monitor, but I think it would be cool if there was a ST-made box that could monitor up to, say, 30 circuits for power draw with little clip-on meters. You’d just pop off the cover of your electrical box and clamp the sensors on every hot wire, then you’d have complete visibility into power usage by circut in the house. Useful for breaking power use down by destination like AC, circulation fan, water heater, dryer, washer, fridge, etc.
Maybe a device that could bridge between the hub and X10 devices that some of us might still have lying around?
I definitely need a better motion sensor to use in my house, any integration’s with a ‘dual technology’ or ultrasonic sensor in the works? Such as those made by leviton or lutron and integrating with their RF?
Personally, I would like to see the devices that used to work get fixed first, like the Centralite Thermostat and the Netatmo Weather Station. Both are or were on the list of supported devices, but now I have $410 of useless “Devices”.
+1 on pdobrien’s request for a simple (just connect a couple of wires) way to have doorbell chime activations as an input to the SmartThings system.
In simplest form: When doorbell chime ring detected, send an alert via SmartThings app or TXT msg.
Smarter: Enable independent detection of activation of each of 2 doorbells (“front” and “back” leads) separately.
Smarter still: Enable IFTTT integration.
It seems like such a sensor should be stupid-simple to create and very reliable if wired into the lead from each button to the “front” and “rear” terminals in the chime. Yet very useful !
Why? I’d like to know if parcel delivery has been attempted when I’m not with earshot of my doorbell chime (out back or running an errand or even out of town), or if anyone else (neighbor, fireman/officer, criminal) tried to see if I’m home. (I’d check a security cam to see who if I’m alerted to the doorbell activation).
It is important it be (1) stupid-simple to connect in, (2) small and attractive (e.g., a sort of dongle outside my chime with small cable into it), and (3) extremely reliable (almost impossible to have false-positives or false-negatives, due to direct wiring, with doorbell voltages 10v to 16v).
FYI - I tried a vibration sensor mounted inside my chime but it usually failed. Seemed like electromagnet triggering the bell killed the sensor, but even before then it was horribly unreliable.
I am not interested in a “hack” that requires I learn how to create an arduino board and custom-program my own app. (I’m slightly more receptive to wiring the water contact sensor of a ST water sensor to the front/rear doorbell terminal leads if that’d work maybe with adding some kind of capacitor or something to the wire to ignore current used to light doorbell button LED.) It seems a major omission that at this point SmartThings still doesn’t have a general-purpose sensor that can be wired into any of many low-voltage sources to detect activations.
Aeon Labs has literally just this week released their two piece zwave doorbell, a button and a chime. Several community members have ordered it, so the forums should soon know whether it works as expected. If it does, it should meet the doorbell use case nicely.
I’m sure that’ll be perfect for some people, but since that is entirely wireless it doesn’t sound like what I’m looking for. My doorbells and chime already exist, look and sound far better esthetically, and are more reliable (as long as my house has power), so for my needs I just want a simple way to catch their activation signal into my ST system for other purposes and I don’t want to replace them with something less stylish and more complicated that requires technical configuration and maintenance (batteries) just to hear a doorbell ring. Thanks for the heads-up, though.
codytruscott – if you were suggesting that to trigger a z-wave status for a wired door, thank you very much for thinking of that idea but that doesn’t look easy at all. First, it seems to require a power supply from a wall-wart but outlets are rarely available high on a wall at a wall chime, so it would either require an electrician and building permits or a dangling black low-voltage extension cord across the wall, although it might be easier to try to hack something using a 9v battery instead. Then as input it seems to require a DC signal but a doorbell operates on low voltage AC instead, so one would need to hack some way to convert it for the mimo lite. Maybe easy for you, but it doesn’t look easy for me. Thank you, though.
JDRoberts – I think that discussion is about expensive fancy networked doorbell/intercom/cam systems. The topic here is “suggest a device” which seems a better fit for my wishing for something really simple that just picks up a voltage pulse from of an existing wired circuit (low voltage AC doorbell circuit activation in this case, but the idea could be generalized or slightly modified for other purposes).
P.S. – I find that other smart networked doorbell/intercom topic interesting to read, but those just don’t seem ready for prime time yet given the many negative reviews from those who tried them. (I was even an early kickstarter funder of the 1st generation Skybell, but realized it’s performance wasn’t up to reasonable performance yet esp. through my home’s metal siding, so I decided not to waste time installing it.)
There are several doorbell topics. The doorbell FAQ topic I linked to covers a wide range of possible solutions. It does mention the fancy video doorbells, but also links to projects where people have simply wired in a contact sensor or mimolite to an existing chime mechanism. Or used an acceleration sensor, which I know you tried.
Samsung SDS just certified a new zwave plus standalone button for South Korea. Would be awesome to see this on a US frequency that works with SmartThings.
For the wires currently connected to the button, connect them to the dry contact on the Mimo Lite. Think of the dry contact as the button.
For the two wires running to the existing button, connect one to the 12V+ on the battery pack, attach the other to the Signal 1 on the Mimo Lite.
The Mimo Lite can be configured to close the dry contact when it receives input from the Signal input. This is all local-to-the-device processing and isn’t dependent upon the zwave network or the smart things network.
With this configuration, you’ll be able to use the button to initiate a chime as expected (even if the network is down), sense a chime and trigger smartthings actions, activate a chime from smartthings.
If anyone has suggested changes to my above suggestion, go for it. =)
I would like to see the Taller Real Living key free touchscreen deadbolt TL1 integrated. I have been waiting for a touchscreen deadbolt with no keyhole, and this one has zwave built in. For some reason it’s not on the compatibility list.
