Hopefully that’s true, but if she was just going by online images of the pieces of plastic enclosing the devices’ internal components there’s definitely a ton of room for error there. Your cautious optimism seems appropriate 
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Haha, right, but leaning more toward caution, based on my past experience with ADT.
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Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh! 
There are no dumb questions, but unfortunately, there are often dumb answers. 
Having the same outside plastic case doesn’t tell you anything about the frequency of the radios inside.
In this case, ADT uses the 345 MHz frequency for most of its security sensors, but this new SmartThings/ADT system, as they say in the announcement, will be using a proprietary 900 MHz frequency.
Not compatible.
ADT pulse sensors are mostly zwave, so they might work with this new system, but they will work the same way the other Z wave sensors work: they can’t be used to trigger the ADT security alerts.
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But she looked at the pictures!! 
Yeah, I figured something like this might be the case… however, even though the new sensors show the 900 MHz protocol, there remains the possibility that the Hub itself will be backward-compatible to the existing ADT Pulse sensors 
. But, doubtful, as I’m sure they would prefer to make everyone buy all new equipment.
If the existing ADT pulse sensors are certified Z wave devices, they should work with it, but you won’t be able to trigger alerts to the monitoring station. You could use them in the home automation rules like turning lights on.
As experienced at Samsung Developers Conference (SDC)…
I don’t mean to be tactless, but the fella manning the ADT Partnership booth at SDC was’t particularly friendly, helpful, enthusiastic, or optimistic. Maybe I just caught him at the wrong time (long days for these guys!) or he just wasn’t prepared for my questions.
I saw the package, Panel, and sensors. Nice Panel; but you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at it (nor any of the non-PIN protected screens) that has anything to do with SmartThings.
And, unequivocal answer from that particular representative: This ADT Panel cannot be used to view or control your SmartThings. While there is an ST Hub inside, there is not a SmartThings or Connect App running on the Panel. To his knowledge, there isn’t even any basic state and event integration; i.e., When you arm your ADT system, he doesn’t think that ADT is able to query non-ADT sensors to see if there is an unsecured zone … or an iron left turned on plugged into a SmartThings connected outlet.
He may just be mis- or under-informed; but my speculation remains that there is a “firewall” between the ADT side and the SmartThings side of this system (and partnership!). But firewalls lend themselves to reconfigurations: i.e., We might as well be optimistic that there will be more powerful and interactive integration added as the products/partnership evolve.
ADT & SmartThings have their hands full launching this in as “basic” a configuration as possible! Do-it-yourself UL compliant monitored security across two different platforms in one box? That’s a pretty big challenge to rollout!
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While searching BestBuy’s website I noticed they’ve added many new SmartThigns/ADT products.
The starter kit will price out at $549.99.
The keychain remote looks interesting. Not sure if will act as a presence sensor, but you can arm and disarm from it. Only $24.99 too.
Contact sensors are also reasonably priced at $24.99, but I don’t think they have all of the features of the MultiPurpose sensor. Either way, if the batteries last more than 4 months, it’ll be a good value at the price.
There are other devices. Personally, I’m very going to follow follow this as it might be of great interest if successful.
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I’m going to have to say that he didn’t have all of the information or there were misunderstandings.
As I mentioned previously, I currently have ADT Pulse which has a hub that integrates both ADTs sensors (door, window, motion, glass break, etc.) and Z-wave devices (GE switches, outlets, garage door controller, thermostats, etc.) so it has both ADT proprietary and Z-wave radios built into it. They both work together seamlessly, such that a door/window opening, motion detection, etc. from the ADT sensors activate the Z-wave devices.
Since it appears that they are eventually abandoning their own Pulse Z-wave hub in lieu of this new partnership, it would be a TERRIBLE move for them to have reduced functionality on this new system, given all of the existing and up-coming competition out there (Although, from what I’ve seen from ADT thus far, a move like that wouldn’t totally surprise me.) Since, all of ADTs devices are inputs to the hub, I think they can fairly easily send their sensor status to the SmartThings controller without compromising security. ADT is feeding status data without being directly linked… no different than how their current Pulse hub operates.
I haven’t seen anything to indicate that “they are abandoning their own pulse hub…”
Maybe I just missed it, but to me it looks like the ADT/SmartThings platform will be aimed at the DIY market. I would expect them to continue to offer pulse as part of the professionally installed platform.
Have you seen anything published to indicate that pulse is going away?
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Nothing concrete. Just a few factors/indicators:
- Instead of maintaining a costly installation workforce and service fleet, they can get customers to install on their own.
- Instead of covering the cost of equipment and recuperating it over the life of a contract, they can get customers to pay for it upfront.
- For the [almost] 3 years that I have had the Pulse system, they have barely upgraded it. The web interface is outdated and functionality is minimal with basic “if this, than that” triggers with little flexibility. For instance, they don’t even have a “dusk-to-dawn” option for scheduling, so throughout the year I have to constantly adjust times to account for changing daylight. It just seems like they don’t care about keeping it up to modern standards (or can’t on their existing platform), and this might be their way out.
- They add about 1 supported Z-wave device every year, and the types of devices they officially support are quite minimal (~10, not including the different color/finish options). They can leverage SmartThings’ mature platform and substantially-larger set of supported devices to provide customers with more options.
- The app experience has been abysmal as well. Went almost a year at one point without any updates, and then when they did, there were so many bugs and issues that would go weeks or months without resolution. Transitioning over to the SmartThings hub would allow them to leverage SmartThings’ app expertise.
My wild guess (have not seen the device) is that while there is a hub inside the device, the panel itself hosts different software for both ADT and ST. Judging by the “our sensors” and “ST sensors” differentiation, I would risk the assumption that ADT maintains its own hardware comms to the ADT devices and has a tight software integration between the ADT half of the hardware and the ST half of the software. In other words, the ADT sensors communicate with ADT software inside the box that then acts as a relay to the ST hub. Those sensors are most likely virtual to ST, the ST hub having no direct control over them. I would not be surprised if those sensors weren’t z-wave/zigbee at all, but follow a more traditional path of RF radio like AT&T does with their Digital Life. But then again, these are all suppositions, I have no knowledge of the internals of that device. (Maybe I should stop by their headquarters on the way home and ask 
)
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JD posted above they are “Proprietary 900 Mhz”. I believe the only z-wave/zigbee device that works with the ADT side is the leak sensor.
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It could very well be a “modified” z-wave or a completely different comms protocol. Most likely NOT z-wave, though. But that explains why ST compatible sensors are not monitored by ADT - because they’re not connected directly to the ADT part, they’re relayed to ADT via the ST hub and ADT would not want to miss a burglary event because the ST cloud was a little bit out at that time, or the thief first cut the internet line. A wise and pretty reasonable decision. I get the same with my AT&T Digital Life integration - ST sees all AT&T contact sensors in real time (SHM will trigger based on them) but AT&T won’t react to ST-based sensors.
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Not zwave.
There’s no such thing as “modified Z wave” because that’s a special chip only available from Sigma.
The new ADT sensors are a different protocol. But the same panel will also have a zwave and zigbee radio, just like the current SmartThings hub.
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@kcdk99 - Pulse is not going away anytime soon. This offering is primarily for DIY customers, professional install systems will still exist.
@ady624 @JDRoberts This is the same way that ADT’s current Pulse offering works - I added plenty of z-wave devices to Pulse before moving everything to ST, and those devices were never available to be monitored for life safety events, including smoke and contact sensors. The sensors that will be part of the new offering for monitoring are proprietary and specific for use with this touchpad/panel.
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Just got to this thread so I’m reading through everything but I have the wireless ADT Pulse system and have had it for about 2 years now. In those 2 years I haven’t had a single false report in either direction (false positive/negative).
SmartThings on the other hand, tends to false report quite frequently. Not enough to cause issues, mostly because it’s all just tied to automation events, but it happens infinitely more frequently when compared to ADT. Just this last weekend I had a door show as “opened” when we were on vacation that triggered SHM to alert while all ADT sensors (including motion) remained silent. Didn’t even bat an eye and assumed the ST sensors were a false report.
Food for thought.
@JDRoberts You would know better than I but I’m in a similar boat as @kcdk99.
I maintain a ST system and a wireless ADT Pulse system that cannot be integrated in the same manner the wired ADT systems can. I do have 2 sensors on a couple doors, 1 for ADT and 1 for ST unfortunately to maintain automation and security systems like what has been mentioned in this thread. Your claim of 325Mhz vs 900Mhz on these “newer” ADT sensors seems at odds with common sense. I understand why you say that (based on marketing documentation for the new hub and existing documentation for ADT Pulse sensors?), and there may infact be a software firewall, but the security sensors that come with an ADT Pulse system, I would really hope could be used with this hub, for security purposes. If they can’t, they (ADT) would have gone out of their way to develop a different proprietary protocol on a different frequency for no reason at all, when their existing protocol is perfectly fine. Not to mention that 900Mhz travels a shorter distance and has a higher likelihood of conflict with existing wireless devices, opposed to 325Mhz. It just doesn’t make sense that’d they’d do something different AND downgrade the protocol. It’s their own sensors after all and sensors that aren’t more than a couple years old at that.
Is there something else additional that I am missing? Perhaps a legitimate reason to have an alternate proprietary protocol?
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It’s not my “claim” – – it’s what the companies have published. I gave the link.
That said, I agree with you, and I too am confused as to why they don’t just use existing ADT sensors for the monitored security alerts.
The only thing I can think of is that there might be some legal reason, where they are prohibited by their partnership agreements with their pro installers from selling a DIY System using the same equipment. It wouldn’t be the first time that kind of thing has happened. Or maybe they intentionally want to intentionally make the migration away from their bigger systems more difficult. I haven’t seen anything to say that that is true, I’m just saying that’s the only reason that would make sense to me without more details.
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That’s fair, perhaps “claim” wasn’t the right word but you got the point of what I am saying.
If you agree with my reasoning, I know I’m not missing something which is good. If this hub is as limited as it sounds like it might be, I won’t be getting it. I was really hoping to combine my 2 systems, use the existing ADT Pulse sensors I already own, and save a few bucks a month. I don’t mind certain sensors being a requirement for security purpose whatsoever as long as they can also be used for automation. Even if it means I have to rebuy a few. Combining multiple systems is my primary motivation.
I just have to hope that the marketing documentation is incorrect (wouldn’t be the first time) and is also simultaneously underselling the final product (this seems highly unlikely).
Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t understand the various limited hubs that are being released (Samsung Home/Hub, ADT Hub, Nvidia Shield, etc). Seems like all of these are severely limited in their capabilities and is a waste of development time but what do I know.
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Well… I did ask what the “relative difference in sensor reliability is” (20×, 200×, …), and indeed, your data literally indicates “infinite ×” due to division by zero…
But WTF? If it is possible, at a reasonable cost, to make sensors that are 100% reliable, then why doesn’t SmartThings and other DIY smart home systems, offer these as an option? Is their patent protection? Much higher cost? Installation complexity? Loss of mesh participation with powered actuators?
Of course, SmartThings has many other points of failure than just sensors so the question may be moot.
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Two completely separate issues.
First, the SmartThings cloud introduces an entire area of unreliability on multiple levels. There’s a reason most purpose built security systems only run locally. But regardless of cloud technology itself, the SmartThings cloud has never been hardened to the level that you would expect for a security system. Just the fact that they push out updates without telling you is enough to introduce vulnerabilities.
Second, yeah, mesh. Z wave and zigbee home automation were never intended for security applications. They’re mostly intended for lighting control. I’m pretty sure the ADT security system is point to point, not mesh.
But it’s most likely the first issue.
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