I reached out to smartthings on how to get a chime alert when a door is open, pretty simple thing. This was the response;
Hello Matt,
Thanks for reaching out to us. I would be happy to assist you. I understand the importance of wanting to be altered when your child runs outside. However we currently do not support a way to have a siren make a different sound at this time. That being said, some people in our community have created non supported custom device type handlers that do work for some siren models if you want to try asking the community. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful weekend!
Kind Regards,
Jason
Wowā¦ So, Iām reaching out the community. Has anyone come up with a solution for this?
This is certainly doable. Are you in the US or in the UK? The options are somewhat different.
(The only other thing I would say is that if this is for a serious safety situation, such as households that have āwanderersā then personally I do not find SmartThings reliable enough for anything involving serious safety issues. So if thatās the reason that you want this, you might at least consider adding a second nonnetworked system with just a regular $15 nonnetworked door alarm as an additional safeguard. )
If youāre in the US, you can start by looking at the Aeon doorbell. This is a device that typically sells for between $50 and $80. It has two pieces. Thereās a button that you would push like a regular doorbell, and then there is the āchimeā piece. The chime piece can play many different MP3 files, and you can program it to play different sounds for different triggers. So you could have a contact sensor on the backyard door play one sound and the front doorbell play different sound, etc.
This is not yet an officially supported device, but there is community code that works very well with it. In fact several versions as different people wanted different features.
If you havenāt yet used custom code with smartthings, hereās the FAQ that will give you an overview of how the process works. Itās pretty straightforward.
If after reading that it sounds like something you would like to move forward with, hereās a popular device handler that supports the Aeon doorbell. You could ask further questions regarding specific features for that device in that thread:
There are also several other ways to do this, so hopefully other community members will chime in As well.
It probably wonāt work with the same code, but it may be possible with custom code. If there isnāt already some in the forums, there are a number of community members who enjoy the challenge of writing custom device handlers and usually they are happy to help.
First, though, we need to check the device. Some chime devices have multiple sound options, but you have to pick one and stick with it. Changing the sound on those requires physically manipulating the device to put it back into configure mode. So that works for some use cases, but not for all. If it just happened that it has a sound that you like and thatās the one you want to use all the time, then that should be very Doable. So the first question is what are the features that the manufacturer offers on the specific device that you own.
The Aeon doorbell, which was just released last year, is unusual in that it allows you to change the sound being played on the fly. Thatās how you can use different triggers for different sounds.
And here you go: one community member has already created a custom device handler for the siren that you have. Again, ask specific feature questions in that thread. Heās in Europe, but itās a Z wave device, the same code should work with the US version of that siren as long as the only difference is the zwave frequency.
Notice that the features built into the device for this one are somewhat different than the Aeon, and thatās just a manufacturer choice.
Also, it may be that this device handler doesnāt have the exact features that you want, but again, if you talk to the folks there they should be able to help you if you need something a bit different.
If you get stuck with anything, just ask in the forums. There are a lot of people who can help. In particular, ask in the authorās thread for any device handler or custom smart app that youāre working with. Thatās where youāll get the quickest response on those questions.
I personally donāt get involved in the detailed code discussions because I rely on text to speech and itās just not possible for me to follow the code. But again, there are lots of people who will help, this community is great.
So I implemented the custom handler and it doesnāt work. Then I realized mine is the PH-PSE02.US (US version) whereas the handler was made for the UK version. You mentioned I might need to tweak it for a different zwave type, like US vs EU? Do you know what that would be so I can tweak it?
Also, once I have the custom handler working I canāt seem to find a way to trigger the chime from a smartthings open/close multipurpose sensor?
Welcome to SmartThings Matthew! You should follow @JDRoberts advice and ask for help with that device handler in the actual forum post where you got that code. That is where you will get the best help.
Also remember that since the author for that device handler is in England, he probably wonāt see your post there for several more hours. But one reason for posting in the authors thread is that then other people who are using the same device handler will also see it and may respond even sooner than the author.
The best advice might still be coming from that forum because they know what ways that device handler was written.
That being said I would look strongly at the new CoRE rule engine by @ady624 because that smartapp is turning out to be THE BEAST of rules engine appsā¦ meaning that more than likely no matter what you do in the future this smartapp could probably do it for you so you wouldnāt waste any time learning the in and outs of this amazing development.
If you are looking at simple stuff only like this chime than go to Smart Lighting which will run locally on hub v2 so that you are not depending on the cloud.
Are you in the US or in the UK? The options are somewhat different.
As well.
)
