Hey there! Odd question - is there a good way to detect if my “broomstick” is in my sliding door? There isn’t a lock on the door (this is legitimately the recommended way, I know it’s dumb) but is there a way to detect if the broomstick is in the slot?
note: I have no idea what the thing is called, it looks like a broken broomstick so I call it that haha
Use a contact sensor, stick the magnet on the lock bar and the sensor on the back of the slider. It might take some fiddling to find a position where it picks up the magnet reliably, and at worst you might need to swap in a rare earth magnet for the one that comes with the sensor, but it shouldn’t be too complicated. Just make sure you put the contact sensor in a location where it won’t get smashed if someone opens the door hard.
You can probably most easily do this method with a Sensative flat sensor. These are zwave and come in either North American or EU frequencies. We use these inside a door frame to tell if the door is left open.
They are more expensive than the boxier sensors, but do fit in some places that the others don’t. 
Ok, I just joined the community tonight and know very little about smartthings, and your broomstick question was the first thing I came across. Are you serious about putting a broomstick in your sliding glass door? I seriously hope not. The local burglar will be in your house so fast it will make your head swim. If that is what you are doing I just thought that I would let you know that I can have that broomstick out before you can say how.
They are clearly talking about a security bar. One of the places I used to live had a sliding door and the security bar was made of wood. I could totally see how one might say it resembles the handle of a broom.
Unless the security bar is physically tied to the frame on both ends with devices that are difficult to release, its easy to remove. Even the two piece devices that have one end physically connected to the frame in some manor are easy to get into.
Sure, but that’s an entirely different topic than the one in this thread.
The OP asked how to get a notification about an existing piece, not how best to secure a sliding door.
People have lots of different reasons for using lots of different things. For example, I had a dog who could open the sliding glass door lock and open the door. Even a real broomstick put in place was enough to stop that behavior in the middle of the night.
The following isn’t my dog and it’s a slightly different behaviour, but a broomstick could be useful here as well. 
Feel free to start a new topic under Projects if you’d like to discuss best security options for a sliding glass door, but for now, unless the OP wants to expand the topic, let’s keep this one on point. Thanks!
Let’s be honest, there are much better ways to get in my house sliding door or not 
Your correct I did get off topic. Being a retired policeman, I became concerned that someone would actually think something of this fashion would secure a sliding glass door. I have taken many reports from people who said it was secure. Criminals have found some pretty ingenious ways to break our laws. I have actually been impressed with some of the ways they do it. I guess our minds just don’t work the same way.
No problem. 
Around here, we say “your use case is not my use case.“ Meaning, unless the person has given all the details, we may not know exactly what problem they’re trying to solve!
Just as one more example, we have a number of community members who have a family member who “wanders.“ Either an adult with Alzheimer’s or a child on the spectrum, or just a toddler. This is a common reason for wanting to secure doors to the outside or get alerts when they are opened while still making it easy to get out if there was an emergency.
Broomsticks are often useful in these situations, as the wanderer will tend to focus on the door handle and isn’t always able to figure out a multi step process, even if it seems very simple.
For example, here’s advice from one Alzheimer’s group:
Another simple idea for sliding glass doors is to place a wooden dowel in the track. This will prevent the slider from moving, and in most cases will be sufficient to deny access to a confused person. You can either buy a dowel, a Charley Bar, or cut an old broomstick to a length that fits in the track. Painting the dowel silver or black to blend with the track of your sliding glass door will make it harder to see and less likely to be discovered.
So welcome to the community! I’m sure you’ll have a lot to contribute, and again, feel free to start a new topic anytime if an existing post makes you think of something that you think would be of interest to others, but is getting off topic there.
Or add your post to the thread in the form of a question so that the OP can let us all know which aspects of the topic they would like to discuss in their thread.
This is very busy forum with a lot of conversations going, and it just helps keep things organized if the topics continue to match their titles.
