An easy button for the most annoying bugs

(Levi) #1

Hey guys and girls! There is one device that I would love to have and I don’t know if its possible. The most annoying and time consuming part of having a Smartthings Hub is the incessant barrage of false alarms or failing automations.
So my idea is a Z-Wave push button, like a door bell or something, that I could program so when I push the button it would dismiss everything and disarm the house. That way I don’t have to unlock my phone, open Smartthings, log in, wait for it to load, go to dashboard, click the intrusion, click false alarm, and then click dismiss. 8 steps saved with a little push button hidden in a close to reach spot! Is this doable?

#2

Sure, but its reliability will be no better than any of the rest of the platform. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

You have a lot of choices for the physical device

As far as the logic, that part is also easy–you just have the button press run a Routine which does all of the other things that you want done.

There is, however, one caveat which is that a lot of stuff won’t happen if the SmartThings cloud is not available. You can’t disarm smart home monitor. You can’t run a routine. You can’t run any custom code. Basically you can just turn some lights on and off if the smartthings cloud is not available.

So if your false alarms are being caused by the Internet dropping or the SmartThings cloud not being available, the button probably isn’t going to help.

But if there are caused by false motion sensor triggers or just poltergeist events, the button should work fine.

#3

By the way, you can also set up a widget on either android or iPhone that will run a SmartThings routine. So again, assuming that the cloud is working and you have Internet connection, that might be also be a quick way to do what you want.

( I hate Mondays) #4

Can routines dismiss alarms? I was under the impression that those alarms can only be dismissed manually?

#5

I don’t think they can dismiss the notification, but they can change the alarm state of SHM and turn off sirens and security lights. Then you do have to go back in and individually dismiss the notifications, but at least you can quickly disarm the system and turn off the various devices.

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( I hate Mondays) #6

Yeah, but you’d keep getting the hourly reminders on the alarms. I think the OP is hoping to dismiss those too… not going to happen ;(

#7

True. But if you’re Standing in your living room and you have three sirens going off and the lights are blinking because of a poltergeist geo presence change, just being able to reset all the physical devices with a single button press is still useful. :sunglasses:

( I hate Mondays) #8

True, true… just don’t use a red button that says “Disarm alarm” and leave it readily available for when the alarm is not false… ;))

(Levi) #9

You guys nailed it! You totally get what I was going for, a single button that dismisses the the alarm and everything. lol. Well I think you guys are right, kind of… I found a solution! I have an X-Carve CNC machine so all I have to do is mount my iPad to the carve table, write a script that wakes, unlocks opens the app, etc. etc. then Ill just modify a good ol fashion, reliable clapper outlet to activate it. When the system freaks out Ill just “clap off”! lol.

#10

I’m curious…what types of false alarms are occurring? I have yet to get one. Bad sensors? Zigbee/zwave network issue?

Does losing access to the internet cause an alarm? What about a power outage?