Burglary Prevented! Thank YOU Smartthings!

I just wanted to say a BIG thank you to the creators of Smartthings for bringing this product to market and actually prevented a burglary at my home last week.

Last Monday at 1:47am, I received a notification on my mobile phone that there was a vibration at my front door. As I (like most of us do) sleep with my mobile phone on my bedside table, only several inches from my head, the noise of the notification instantly woke me from my sleep. I was obviously still slightly drowsy, sitting up looking at my phone thinking, “What the Hell”.

At which point, at 1:49am, I received a second notification saying “Front Door Intrusion” meaning the sensor had opened. At almost the exact same time, I heard a very slight cracking sound coming from downstairs along with muffled noises of people talking.

Oh my WORD, I was being broken into!

Now, I have my system set up so that if there are any “Intrusions” when the home is set to armed, it immediately turns on ALL of my Phillips Hue light bulbs, house wide.

I immediately ran downstairs, but by the time I had reached the front door, the perpetrators had run off, most likely due to the lights all turning on, and nothing at all to do with the high pitched squeals of a half naked man throwing open the front door and flying out into the dead of night to confront them.

Comfortingly, the multipoint locking mechanism in the front door had kept the house secure, but if it hadn’t been for Smartthings notifying me, and then subsequently turning all my house lights on, I’m sure they would have continued trying to get in through the front door whilst I was sound asleep, and I would now be sitting here with no laptop, no wallet, no car etc


In that one very moment, Smartthings and the thousands of Pounds I’ve spent on my Home Automation completely paid for itself.

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I’m glad you were able to wake up from the notification. Have you thought about adding a siren? Sometimes, I sleep through the notifications especially the one that arms the house once things quiet down.

My alarm is still monitored through a monitoring company but I also have it connected to ST via an Envisalink4 and have been contemplating on ending the monitoring service now that I have 8 cameras and even more sensors.

What I didn’t think about is turning on all the lights (38) if the alarm goes off!

Thanks!

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I did use to have my two Sonos Play 1’s connected to the Hub and when an “intrusion” detected, then music played out a full volume. The problem with that every time I opened the front door, having forgotten to click “Good Morning”, the speakers would blare out. Or the couple of times a strong wind hit the front door, including one at 3am, the speakers would blare out and wake me violently from my sleep. So this was quickly disabled.

Which is why I woke up a little confused last week to the notification on my phone as my initial thought was that it was Smartthings ‘bugging out’ again. It wasn’t until I heard the ‘cracking’ sound that I jumped out of bed shouting “It’s Game Time”.

But regardless of all the complaints about Smartthings being “unreliable”, and “buggy” and “not stable”, it all went away in that moment. It saved me from a break in.

As for all the lights turning on, it’s a great feature, especially at night time. I think that was the main reason they ran off and stopped trying to force the front door, as it would have looked like there were half a dozen people in the house who all woke up at the same time, as oppose to the reality which was it was only me.

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How did this happen if the multipoint lock remained intact? Did the sensor somehow fall off due to the vibration?

No, the sensor didn’t fall off, and yes the multipoint stayed perfectly in place keeping the door closed.

I’m guessing here obviously, but I reckon it’s because I have the main sensor on the door, and the small part of the sensor on the frame, which means the two parts aren’t parallel, they’re at a slant. So basically, when the door is closed, the two sensors are only just connected, showing the door as locked. So, even so much so much a millimetre of movement in the sensor shows the door as ‘open’.

So, therefore, when they were trying to jemmy the door, the uPVC would have flexed just enough to ‘open’ the sensor, sending me the notification, and when they relaxed from pulling the door, the door would have snapped back causing the sensor to close again.

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I probably hadn’t made it obvious in my first post, but my door is a plastic uPVC door, not one of those metal composite doors, or wooden doors, which I guess won’t bend or flex as much as mine does. It’s an old cheap door.

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Wow, that was a near miss!!

@Marty just a thought on the “good morning” comment. Have you though about having them run automatically at a set time. I have mine run “good night” at 11:15pm (locks doors, arms some monitoring stuff) and then “good morning” routine turns of in morning. This would help with some of the false alarms.

I hope you had a gun when you ran out to confront them.

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I hope @Marty didn’t have a gun when he ran out as that is illegal in the UK. :sweat_smile:

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Oh sorry I wasn’t aware. Not even a hunting rifle is legal? I’m not saying I wouldn’t do the same in the heat of the moment but seeing they didn’t get in and nobody was hurt running out after them isn’t a good idea.

Yeah, I already have a Good Morning routine set for 8am, but at the weekends, that’s a little early, so I normally pick up my phone and hit “Goodnight” so the lights turn off. Then, I forget to hit Good Morning again and I get an “Intrusion Alert” when I leave the property


First World Problems eh.

As for the gun question, no, in the UK those are illegal, and for good reason too. When a burglar breaks into your house in the UK, the worst they may have on them would be a knife thank God. I could probably tackle someone with a knife and not come off too bad.

I don’t really like the idea of guns becoming legal and then having to worry about being shot as well as robbed when someone breaks in!

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Criminals in the UK obey laws? :astonished:

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@Marty I actually don’t run a separate weekend good morning routine but you definitely can. It would allow you to set different wake up time. You could also set an action to override the routine to prevent false alarms. In my case its a light switch in a secure area. So if I turn on a light in the bedroom before the routine runs based on time it fires the routine for me. Now that could open up some issues as well so you would have to think a lot about what you use as a trigger for that but its possible. Also depends a lot on what you have for possible triggers in ST.

I’m for reasonable gun laws but if 3 guys break into your house with bats a gun would help your odds.

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Guns are much harder to get hold of in the UK and as the homeowner wouldn’t be armed most buglers wouldn’t feel a need to carry. If they get caught with a gun it would be a much higher penalty.

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I have the good morning routine triggered off a motion sensor between the hours of 7AM and 12PM only. The motion sensor is in an area I pass every morning.

With this setup, regardless of the day and time I wake up, it disarms the alarm before I have a chance to set it off by accident.

I use the same motion sensor to trigger arming of the alarm between 11PM and 6:AM after 30 minutes of no motion. So, if I forget to arm things, it will do it for me after I fall asleep.

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This is one of those sayings where a “near miss”, actually means it was a hit. :wink:

I couldn’t resist.

This is a bloody brilliant idea. I’m going to implement the Motion Sensor Good Morning Routine over Christmas and will hopefully be able to have a lay-in now without my bedroom light turning on every time I roll over!

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