So, I really like the idea of using Smart Things to run my house, but the wife still wants this thing to behave as a fire and police contact method, especially if we are out of town.
Unfortunately I’m not seeing anything apparent on making SmartThings behave as a standard home security system.
Am I missing something? Is there a way I can get the best of both worlds?
There are all sorts of complexities to this one. 911 needs to be “a local call” so it goes to the correct call center. You could possibly program it to trigger an IFTTT recipe that would call the local number and read a text, but IFTTT can’t call any old number - it has to call your number. So, that options is out as well.
In this case, I think you still need a monitoring service that calls on your behalf.
I have a DSC Alarm system that can be monitored if I wanted. I was also able to integrate it with Smartthings with the help of several guys on the forum…
I installed the DSC Alarm. Then I installed the EnvisaLink 3 which talks to the monitoring service and also allows the alarm server program running on a computer in the house to talk to Smartthings.
Here is there monitoring service and I’m sure there are more than can monitor it…
I have Philips Hue bulbs in the House. When I walk into the living room and the Alarm Motion Sensor senses motion between 7:15pm -10:30pm it turns on the lights in that room. Also Have a Alarm Motion sensor in the Hallway that turns the light on and off during the night for the kids. I use the Alarms Front Door Sensor to turn on the Philips Hue Entry light when its dark out…
Well It all kinds of works together…Lol… The alarmserver program monitors the alarm and when it senses zones or motion zones open it sends a signal to the smart things hub and it does its thing…
There are no dumb questions… We all have to learn at one point…
I haven’t messed with the smart things notifying me of an alarm yet… Sorry… Just got the other parts working…Lol
The monitoring service would connect straight to the alarm system via the envisalink evl-3 device and if an alarm went off they would handle that. Not sure what there protocols are and how they handle an alarm situation… Never had a monitoring company…
I’ll add another wrinkle in that the company Envisalink is setup to email me when anything happens with the alarm. Whether its disarmed, or armed or if the alarm is tripped I get a nofication…
I have a new DSC alarm in the box, waiting to be installed - but I’ve been holding off, tracking and hoping the DSC/Smartthings integration gets documented at a ‘Newbie’ level. Is there such ‘how-to’ doc?
Step 1:
Use AlarmServer project OR anything that can talk to your Alarm panel and send GET request to Smartthings for each event (there is another project in this threadusing NodeJS I think instead of Python and it works great as well).
I use the custom branch I created in the AlarmServer project (I am NOT the AlarmServer project owner, I simply added the Smartthings branch and the callback URL code to the project). Clone the Smartthings Repo, switch to the Smartthings branch and edit the alarm server.cfg file to fit your needs. NOTE: You will need the URL stuff from the RESTAPI setup in the alarmserver.cfg file later.
Step 2 - Setup Alarm Panel Device (or multiple devices, your choice) and the SmartApp to control it all:
Step 3 - Setup the REST API bits (I wish Smartthings would simplify this with say a single API key or something instead):
Step 4 - Start it all up and tweak/debug:
Once everything is setup open up the logs link in the Smartthings IDE and then fire up the alarmserver.py program.
You should see events arriving in the log file within a second or so if everything is configured right.
@Clay See my post above. You can’t disarm or arm the alarm from the app yet, but I use the eyezon site for this anyway…I included a picture of the smart things app… Ill also include another one I have setup of all the zones too… You can see which windows or door or motion sensors have been opened.
You have a DSC security system doing its normal security system things, but additionally, it sends REST calls to your SmartThings hub telling it when stuff happens (door/window opens, alarm turned on, etc).