Certainly. I like to have my Roomba active while I’m away, but doing so requires the wired motion sensors of my Honeywell alarm to be deactivated lest the Roomba trigger them. Since I prefer not to deactivate those sensors I usually run the Roomba while home which makes it somewhat less useful.
I realize none of this is supported by ST. The Honeywell panel setup requires the card mod to function with ST, and the Roomba doesn’t speak - at least not the model I have. A giant headache I’m sure, but I would like to think it possible in the future.
Yes… when my motion sensor notices I wake up in the morning, my DCS alarm turns off, camera motion sensing is turned off, and various other things… same thing at night. When it senses I am no longer up, my alarm gets set, my camera motion sensors come on, etc… all via Mode change.
The code is not setup for LAN communication, and does not require your MyDLink account information. I have ports open on my router, so the cameras are on the internet… could be changed over to LAN communication.
And yes, it just sends the pics to where ever you want them to go. Mine go to my NAS, but it could be email.
If your alarm system sees your Roombas, then your motion sensors are set too sensitive. Usually there is a switch on the sensors to ignore pets, which the Roomba is smaller than. I have my vacuums set to run while I am gone and have not had a false alarm.
Sounds interesting, I guess it’s the open Port that I don’t like messing with.
So I don’t need a motion sensor, I could just do it on straight Mode changes?
Cell phone leaves home, mode changes to Away etc.
The official Roomba remote is an infrared (IR) device like a TV remote, so not immediately compatible with SmartThings. There is a zigbee radio in some models, not all, but it uses a proprietary dialect, so not much joy there, either. There is a serial port inside the device and some people have made an arduino shield device that plugs into the serial port and then has a transmitter, but that’s some serious overkill,looks ugly, raises the footprint so it may run into stuff like when going under chairs, and voids the Roomba warranty, so probably not a first choice solution.
There is a commercially available version similar to the arduino hack but it costs 100 euros and only works with older Roomba models. @sidjohn1 was able to get this (called thinking cleaner ) to work with his SmartThings, but it’s obviously an expensive way to go, especially since it only solves the Roomba issue.
It’s pretty easy to control a Roomba via an iTach WiFi to IR bridge, but while a more elegant solution than the Arduino path, it requires some fairly serious DIY commitment. Cost is about $100 for a bridge but you can control multiple devices from that. @scottinpollock could say more about the iTachs, he uses them for other IR controllable devices like home entertainment systems.
Some people have been able to get one of the various Harmony remote models to work with one of the various Roomba models, but there’s not 100% compatability and you still need something to connect the Harmony to SmartThings, which isn’t easy right now.
For the newer models, there is a WiFi option with JSON files and a lot of third party developers have taken advantage of that to create Roomba controllers that work as smartphone apps or with other home automation systems.
RooWiFi , for example, has plug ins for Vera and Domotica. Those are NOT zwave protocols, they’re using a webservice interface.
I would expect something like this could be built for SmartThings as well, it just doesn’t look like anyone has.
So for the technical audience, that’s three completely different ways of accessing the Roomba controls: via standard IR one way communication, like the official remote; via a new antenna plugged into the internal serial port; or as a WiFi connected web service.
ENGINEER’S SOLUTION: SMART PRESSURE MAT AT THE DOCKING STATION
From a completely different direction, if you park the Roomba under a shelf or sofa, someplace sheltered, you should be able to put a proximity sensor so you can tell when the Roomba has left or returned to the docking station.
You should also be able to do this easily and more cheaply than any other solution with a pressure mat that the Roomba drives over, but it would have to be high sensitivity as many cheap pressure mats don’t trigger until there’s 25 pounds of pressure to avoid false alarms. However, LondonMat does make some nice ones that trigger at a “nominal” 5 pounds of pressure. Some Roomba models are over 7 pounds, and I suspect these would successfully trigger. You would still have to attach a contact sensor to these to make them networkable, but that’s just the “smart door mat” project:
LondonMat manufacturer site, but these are available at other retailers as well. See their online shop for their pricing. The minimal force ones are called “switching mats” or “signal mats.”
Oh, and here’s a guy who made his own roller switch pressure mat using LIttleBits, then used its WiFi connector to talk to IFTTT (there’s a LittleBits channel). I suspect the total cost would end up being more than buying a pressure mat, and you might run into a 15 minute IFTTT polling delay that wouldn’t fit the alarm code use case, but it looks like a fun project and at least demonstrates proof of concept for the pressure mat idea.
Is it possible to have the ST presence sensor beeps 4 times less than 4 seconds when pressing the beep button under the ST presence preference? Right now it will goes off only once. I would love to have this so I can rig my car engine remote starter.
Just want to echo the thoughts on the DLink Cameras. My number 1 wish is to have my Dlink cameras turn on/off motion detection based on whether I’m home or away. Don’t need anything else, and just let the cameras themselves handle emailing me the pics.
Along the same lines as @JDRoberts suggestion of using pressure mats, would something like the URBEST Single Beam Photoelectric Detector Active IR Sensor ($12 on Amazon) connected to an ecolink door/window sensor possibly solve your problem. If placed near the docking station it could let you know when the roomba leaves and returns. Cheaper solution than the mats but could possibly trigger false alarms based on placement and/or pets.
I would like to see ST work with power utilities to integrate with their smart grid efforts. I see two basic approaches 1) using their API to understand power consumption within the home and trigger ST events 2) providing them an API to trigger events when power consumption is high (giving me a discount).
have you used this IR sensor in this manner? I have been considering buying one and connecting it to a door sensor just like you described, but I wasn’t sure if it would work well. The use case I am trying to solve is triggering a light when anyone walks into a hallway. I can’t use a motion sensor in this case because everywhere I position it I get false triggers due to people walking nearby since this hall has many door openings. I want to definitively know that someone walked past a certain point so I think the IR would do the trick assuming it works. There is a dual beam one in the mid twenties so that could be more reliable.
I have not but have been considering using this method to detect someone coming up my walkway. If you look up “laser trip sensor” on this board you should find a discusion about how some people use these. Someone indicates that they are using the sensors I pointed out.
thank you for being so willing to help in this community