ADT Pulse Help

I am so glad I found this post, as I had been looking for a way to do this for some time and only found posts that said it was not possible… I followed your instructions, and everything worked as described. Thanks so much for posting your solution!

I have a question, though. Are you able to add additional Z-Wave devices to the SmartThings hub after this? I tried adding several Z-Wave devices, and the hub never finds them. I am still able to add devices to the ADT Pulse Hub and then incorporate them, but this limits considerably the kind of devices I can add.

Thanks!

Hey Alex…glad my post helped you out!

Unfortunately, I have not figured out how to add Z-Wave devices into SmartThings after following this procedure.

However, you can still add Z-Wave devices through ADT Pulse and then have SmartThings scan for new devices. It should find them. If not, you can manually add the Z-Wave device to SmartThings…just get the address from ADT Pulse (which is in decimal) and use this address in SmartThings (which is hexadecimal). You select the appropriate device driver and you are good to go!

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Thanks for the quick response! Adding through ADT Pulse works, but the problem is that one is then limited to ADT-supported devices only. Unfortunately I have a few devices that SmartThings supports and ADT Pulse does not. As painful as it may be, I may factory reset the SmartThings hub, add the non-ADT Pulse devices, and then redo the process of adding the devices registered with the ADT Pulse hub (hoping that this would work).

That won’t work. There can be only 1 Z-Wave Master, and the ADT Pulse Hub can only be master. You will end up with 2 different Z-Wave networks.

I got around this by getting the special devices in Zigbee, and adding them to SmartThings.

I tried this but in the portal ADT pulse site, I don’t have the capability to add z-wave devices. Any thoughts?

From the seaching I’ve found even if you have ADT Pulse, unless you’re on Teir 2 or Teir 3 pricing plan, which is their smart home compatible stuff, you don’t have access to managing z-wave devices yourself. If you upgrade, your pulse portal will look totally different like shown in this youtube video on how to add devices yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogeLDN7WnIA

I see. Thanks for saving me the pain of going through that for nothing…

Just out of curiosity, what would happen if one added a device to the SmartThings hub and after that made the ADT Pulse Hub master? Would that device simply be dropped from the Z-Wave network when ADT Pulse “takes over”?

The big benefit to using SmartThings to arm/disarm is, of course, geofencing logic. I still have no way to auto-arm ADT Pulse when my wife and I both leave or disarm when one of us gets home. This basic, rudimentary feature, is a huge part of the reason we don’t use ADT Pulse to its full capability. It really just sits on a schedule for us, arms at midnight, disarms at 6am. We sometimes remember to manually set for vacations.

I use an Arduino to add this functionality.

Can you elaborate? Get a USB Zwave add on of some kind and pair it to the Pulse controller?

All of the integrations I’ve seen have been for the older, more traditional wired system and not the Pulse system.

I use an Arduino with an AD2Pi to connect to my Pulse system. They now longer sell the ThingShield, but someone may have one they’re willing to part with. You can also use an ESP8266. In either case, ST_Anything is used.

I don’t mean to be rude but I don’t think we are talking about the same thing. The ADT Pulse line is for newer installs and almost universally done on existing construction.

My ADT controller is 100% wireless, nothing hardwired. Is a mix of Zwave and a proprietary ADT protocol.

Your method is meant to be hardwired into an existing panel where the Arduino speaks to hardwired outputs. To integrate with the actual newer Pulse stuff, it all has to be on the software side. There is nothing to wire to.

I could be wrong so please correct me if so but I am almost positive you are talking about something completely different. Trust me, I wish I was wrong.

I did have a wired/wireless ADT system originally. I upgraded to the Pulse system. It’s just a box that ties into the panel. I tried their limited approach to z-wave years ago and switched to ST in late 2014. Still the Pulse system, but different implementations.

Good luck.

Yes, the new system has no “panel”. The box is the panel. For better or worse, your system is a hybrid system and not really the norm. When people talk about not being able to integrate with Pulse, they aren’t talking about you :wink: you Basically have Pulse integrating with your old wired system and AlarmDecoder integrating to the wired system. Pulse itself isn’t talking to AlarmDecoder. If it isn’t obvious, I would prefer to be in your scenario.

So unfortunately, my original statement still stands. I still haven’t found a way to get true geofencing with an actual full Pulse system.

I’ve already accomplished adding my ST hub as a secondary controller to my ADT Pulse hub. I recently purchased one of the Dome Z-Wave motion sensors to add to ST, but didn’t realize that you can’t add Z-wave devices normally to ST once it is a secondary controller. ADT Pulse won’t add it either since it isn’t a supported device. Is there any other way to add this Z-wave device, or am I better off returning it and purchasing a Zigbee motion sensor?

Hi. Any chance you have or can give detailed instructions on this section?

Z-Wave Tweaker has instructions on how to install and use it.

Are you referring to polling?

Newbie to this so I’m going to say no. I am referring to the “lifeline” association for the hubs.

I was able to install zwave tweaker however I don’t understand how to associate the hubs so there is no delay. At the moment I have a delay if I turn something on using ST. For example, if I unlock the door, it unlocks it but it says it’s still locked.

Am I correct in assuming that the association fix you mention takes care of this delay?

Nick Luna

You can use some “Google-fu” to get a basic understanding of Z-Wave.

Z-Wave devices have association groups. The number of groups, the number of nodes in a group, and what each group does is specific to various manufacturers. You can go to the main Z-Wave website to get the various definitions.

For instance, some manufacturers have association groups for:

  • Single Tap: you can instruct other devices to do the same thing as this device. For example, I have a ceiling fan on a separate switch from the living room light switch. In all cases, when I turn the light on in the living room I want the ceiling fan on (and off when the light is off). So, I set the association group (using Z-Wave Tweaker) so that the light switch also controls the ceiling fan. I can still control the ceiling fan directly with its switch.

  • Double Tap: you can instruct other devices to do something when you double tap a switch on this device. I have various groups of switches setup so that when I double tap one switch it turns off others at the same time.

Z-Wave devices have a “lifeline group”. Nodes in the lifeline group will be notified by the device when something changes. When a Z-Wave device is added to a hub, the master hub will insert its address into the lifeline group. If you are using ADT Pulse, this will be the main ADT Z-Wave controller. If you are adding on a secondary SmartThings hub, you use the Z-Wave Tweaker utility to add the node address of the SmartThings hub to the lifeline group of a specific device.

For example, my GE Z-Wave Plus switches can accept multiple node addresses into the lifeline group of each switch. Then, when the switch status changes, the devices in the lifeline group are notified. For “SmartSwitches”, there is a patent that prevents other manufacturers from directly using this association for “everything”. For my GE devices, manual activations are pushed through the lifeline group. But “remote” activations (by either another hub or the GE add-on switch) are not passed as this would violate the patent. To get around this, you “poll” the device status periodically.

For my front door lock, I get near instant notifications of the status change regardless of whether it is a manual or remote activation.

For my garage door opener, I can only have 1 node in the lifeline group.

So…it depends on the device type and manufacturer.

A special note on polling: Z-Wave is not a high bandwidth network topology. If you are polling too many devices, you will congest the network.

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Tis works so great as far as havings light and switches workable in both, Thanks!

Here is the question, if I add a new light to ADT pulse, how do I get it to get picked up in ST without starting all over? I added one and had to delete everything and the link and then start from scratch so it picked everything up again.

Reed