We have dogs, one is left upstairs the other down when we leave the home. But, we often will take them with us to the beach, overnight somewhere or just out for the day.
So I was hoping, and cannot find a way, I could add for instance “Armed Away, Dogs Home” which I could have activate all sensor EXCEPT the motion detectors for the rooms they are in. Then another for “Armed Away Dogs Gone” where everything is activated everywhere.
Is there ANY way to do this?
In Automations> Routines, set up a routine that will not use the motion sensors when the dogs are there and another that will they are gone. When selecting the motion sensors just don’t select the ones in the rooms where the dogs are in.
Another option is using CoRE.
That will work to send a notification, but it will not be integrated with smart home monitor – – there is no way to add additional alarm states to SHM at this time.
That may not matter unless the OP is using some of the features which are specific to SHM like Scout integration. But it is the way the system works at the present time: there are only three possible SHM alarm states, the ones that it comes with.
Thank you, but not what I wanted. I want to add a selection to the dashboard’s current 3 selections. I would just rename Armed Away to Armed aways dogs home then add one that’s Armed way dogs gone.
Not a routine and im not seeing anyway to do it?
Ok I misread the intent then. SHM cannot be changed like that. I mostly ignore the SHM feature and use the routines adjusted to my needs.
Here is how I understand how things work with an example how I use routines and a suggestion.
SHMs only purpose is to monitor your open/closed and motion sensors. Armed(Away), Armed(Stay) and Disarmed are only “States” - they do nothing by themselves, they are the only “States” allowed by ST and are cannot be set up to perform any Action. Pushing one of the three buttons simply changes States from one State to another - That’s it. You can not create new States in SHM.
The Security App is fired when any of these buttons changes States. It’s purpose is simply to tell which sensors to monitor in the two Armed States. It performs no actions.
Notify Me When Smartapp tells ST to notify your phone in the case of a sensor firing in the armed states with an intrusion alert. It performs no actions.
So, putting it simply, SHM is a home MONITORING service that gives you an intrusion alert and notifies you when a monitored event occurs.
Routines are the Action guys. They turn on lights, sirens and other things. Here is the crazy part. SHM will not run a routine when the state is changed, but a routine can change the state of SHM. To make it more confusing the provided routines are named “Good Morning,” “Good Night,” “I’m Back,” and “Away.” These names mean different things to different people. even more confusing is that instead of changing the state to Armed(Away), Armed(Stay) and Disarmed, you change the state to “Night,” “Home” and “Away” and then somehow translated to SHM’s three states. You can rename the routines but the pretty icon changes to an ugly gray color so that you cannot distinguish one from the other at a glance. So, if you want some action to take place, such as turning on an outside camera to detect motion when ST is armed, you must set this action up as a routine and write a Custom rule to notify you when motion is detected and start recording video. The down side to this is that arming/disarming the system with SHM will ignore the routine. The cameras will not turn on, you will not get a notification and there will be no video. SHM becomes useless at this point. To perform these actions you must now arm/disarm ST with routines and pretend that the three SHM states do not exist.
The plus side to using routines to arm/disarm ST are that you can create new routines to serve whatever purpose you need. They perform much faster than SHM. You can creates widgets on your smart phone/smart watch so that you can arm/disarm ST from your device’s lock screen.
The down side to arming/disarming ST with routines is that sometimes they don’t fire although they say that they did and the SHM indicates a change of states. This happens to me frequently.
So, my advice is to modify the existing routines to suit your needs and create new ones for you special situations. Forget SHM’s home page completely.
I don’t think this is entirely accurate. Within the security tab of SHM, once you choose contact and motion sensors to monitor, you can select “notifications” that include lights, sirens and audio devices, in addition to an actual notification in the form of a push from the mobile app or sms.
Also, a routine can directly change the state of SHM, independent of whether the routine also changes mode. For example, my good night routine arms SHM to arm/stay and changes to “night” mode." But I could do either one of those things and not the other, if I chose to.
Using a virtual switch, one could use SHM to turn on the switch (within the security tab, not a custom SHM alert), which is in turn set as a trigger to run a routine. Should SHM be capable of doing more actions without resorting to a virtual switch to trigger a routine? Sure, but it’s fairly simple to create a virtual switch and tie SHM to a routine.
@marktheknife,
Thanks Mark for the corrections. You are right, but I was trying to keep it simple and not write a book length post. While I am tech savvy enough to do a lot of things, most of the people that I have recommended ST to are not. They want the system to work as they think it is advertised, “right out of the box.” While I am retired and have lots of time to tinker and am only limited in ST by my imagination, others may not want to.
What I am trying to say is that ST, (like most alarm systems), have 3 arm/disarm states. IMHO anything dealing with security should fall under these three states. Secondly, almost all security systems believe that home security begins at your front door. With new devices becoming more popular such as outdoor cameras, outdoor motion detectors, pressure mats and devices to monitor your driveway they are also part of your home security. Most people would not like an intrusion alert when one of these devices fires, but would probably want a warning alert.
When I, or my non technical daughter, for example, arms the system from the SHM front page they would like a good way to monitor these outdoor devices.
Anyway I have nearly beat this poor horse to death, so I probably won’t write any more posts on this subject.
It is advertised as a right out of the box, plug and play type of system. No where does ST state, hint or otherwise indicate that you need any knowledge of how to write code or that codes developed here are basically essential.
ST doesn’t seem to think that an alarm system needs a delay either. I want a multi-step triggering system with a delay.
Front porch motion sensor detects something, indoor motion sensor detects movement, door sensor opens= no alarm
Front porch motion sensor detects something, door sensor opens, indoor motion sensor detects movement from another part of house, A) delay gives time to reset system, system reset = no alarm or B) delay gives time to reset system but no reset= Alarm
Front porch motion sensor detects something, indoor motion sensor detects NO movement, door sensor opens, A) delay gives time to reset system, system reset = no alarm or B) delay gives time to reset system but no reset= Alarm
Front porch motion sensor detects something, indoor motion sensor detects movement, door sensor does not open = no alarm
@tpip,
I agree totally with staged alerts and arm/disarm delays. That, along with all the false alarms and very late notifications is what is preventing me from linking up with Scout Alarm for 24/7 monitoring. I could not afford all the fines from the police department for false alarms. That is also why I went ahead and purchased a real monitored Alarm system. As part of the arming process a little window pops up asking if I want a delay and if I want silent arming or not. It also will give me a warning if one of my doors or windows has been left open and won’t let me arm the system until I have taken care of that problem.
And, we haven’t even gotten to the point of if IOT will ever work properly, especially since the big internet hack yesterday where all these connected IOT devices were used.
My Alarm system has not had one hiccup in nearly a year, whereas ST has had more than I can count.
What I am looking for is:
Car enters driveway. SMS and Text alert “Motion in Driveway.” Turn on driveway camera. Record Video
Motion sensor picks up motion on front porch. SMS and Text alert "Motion on Front Porch. Turn on Front Porch camera. Record Video. Turn on interior lights.
Front Porch storm door open/closed switch opens. SMS and Text alert “Front Porch Storm Door Open” Turn on Front Porch camera again. Record Video.
Front Door open/closed switch opens. Delay. SMS and Text alert “Front Door Open”
After short delay, Interior motion sensors fire off. Intrusion Alert if delay times out and there is still interior motion.
You get the drift.
I would change that to turn on exterior lights. Otherwise very similar thinking on how ST or any multi-tiered system should work for security.
Sorry, @tpip, but I have motion detection porch lights with a farther motion detection range than my Arlo cameras so That I don’t need to use Arlo’s Night Vision. They are not connected to ST. The reason for turning on the interior lights is to make anyone that steps on my front porch or knocks on my front door will think that I am home. The way my home was built I don’t have enough room to mount a Skybell or Ring doorbell.
Not everybody has motion activated lights beyond their camera range. Not everybody has cameras outside or even inside. For people getting started in HA, a motion sensor is a lot cheaper option that will integrate very well into their systems.
Reasoning behind exterior 1st is that a criminal triggering a light won’t know if its from inside the house or a motion detector, light exposes anybody outside (they lose tactical advantage), no light on inside means you are less likely to be exposed from outside looking in and on a normal day-today basis it would help the person find the door, keys etc. It has been proven that an outside motion detecting light is a big deterrence.
Interior lighting 1st would make solicitors keep knocking or ringing, no assistance with legitimate traffic in finding doors keys etc, and criminal element will be discouraged anyway. People inside would have a higher chance of being seen from outside (i.e. no tactical advantage but big disadvantage).
@tpip
Interesting point about interior lighting. One other thing I wanted to mention is that I am so sick and tired of the USPS or UPS dropping off packages on my front porch and not bothering to knock on the door or ring my doorbell. Amazon was very bad about sending packages with no signature required, regardless of the price of the item inside the box. For a long time I struggled with a way to know when someone arrived at my front porch without triggering an intrusion alert. I can now do it without coding by arming/disarming my system with routines and custom rules to notify me, but for this reason and the above reasons for outdoor security is why I have been harping so much that ST should address this issue as I know I am not the only one that wants warning notifications for what is happening outside the home.
For this particular use case, knowing that a package has been delivered,I use the Kuna porch light which has a motion triggered camera, a light, two way audio intercom, and a panic siren. I really like it. But there’s no integration with SmartThings.
You can get more integration with ring or the official integration with skybell, but each of these three has somewhat different features so it just depends on exactly what you need.
I’m actually waiting to get a second Kuna until their HomeKit compatible version is out, because I really want this:
But everybody has different requirements. There are a lot of ways to approach security issues. 
@JDRoberts
Feel free to move this post wherever you think is appropriate but since it is here I’ll respond. I looked at the Kuna Lights and was very impressed, but unfortunately I am on DSL at the moment and I don’t have the speed or bandwidth for them. I might have to change my carrier to Time Warner Cable but I had problems with them in the past. I have also looked at the smaller version of the ring doorbell. (not sure right now if Skybell offers a slim version, but I think they do). I just might be able to squeeze one in the space I have.
I also have a couple of questions to ask you, but they have nothing to do with this thread. But here goes - with all the equipment how many routers are you using? I only have one slot left on my DSL Modem. Assuming you have more than one, do they interfere with each other?
I think you should only need one router, even if you had hundreds of wifi or Ethernet connected devices on your network (whether you have enough bandwidth to use that many devices is a different issue). Do you mean the Ethernet ports on the back of your modem? You could just buy an Ethernet switch to get more Ethernet ports. Sorry if I’m way off, I haven’t had dsl in like 15 years, if you’re referring to something else.
There are a lot of different ways to set up multiple networks, or to add to an existing network, so you should probably set up a different thread under projects if you’re interested in talking about that. 
If you just need more ports, though, the easiest thing is just to add an Ethernet switch. This is a device you plug into the router to add additional ports. Here’s a good article on the pros and cons.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basics/lanwan-basics/31442-how-to-add-ports-to-a-router
JDRoberts Thanks
marktheknife - Thank you also. You got it right.
Easiest way would be to use the SHM Armed (Away) for when you and dogs are gone, and Armed (Home) for when dogs are home.
