Building new home ... Best Practices? (2020)

[rontalley]

@steinauf

what integration are you using, and like enough that you’d recommend it to someone starting from scratch?

My house came with 28 sensors, contacts, motions, smokes, etc…

It was actually one of my first custom ventures that started off with just a, “it would be so cool if I could arm/disarm the DSC Alarm System via SmartThings”… A few searches later, I came across this thread:

[OBSOLETE] DSC -> EVL-3(4) -> Alarmserver -> Smartthings

There are a million threads about this, and I figured I should start my own. I’ve compiled code from 3-4 people here and will give them credit. This set up allows arm/disarm via local LAN so you do not have to worry about https, security, and port forwarding. It creates all devices, you only need device types for contact, motion, smoke, and co2. Very simple, and easy. If you have a raspberry pi you can host alarmserver on it and have this running much much quicker and easier than any other dsc integration method. This is from @sanity, @xero, @ethomasii, @jtt, @rfish8u, @mattmartz, and countless others I"ll name as I remember. If you’re experienced in setting this up you can skip directly to the devices, smartapp, and alarmserver and be good to go. For new users, view the advanced r…

In hind-site, it was super easy to setup. Just needed a Pi3 and the EVL-4 module and some knowledge of working with custom codes. However, I had Zero knowledge working in Linux and/or custom codes.

That’s where this awesome forum come into play!

After I got it up and running, I was SUPER excited because it also gave me full access to everything including the Smokes, COs and Glass-breaks.

So full professional monitoring and 28 useable sensors for $100 was well worth the learning curve.

IMHO, custom apps and custom handlers is what makes ST so darn powerful. Once you get your head around it, the sky is the limit.