I have 11-zones which have windows, 3-standard doors and 3-double doors. Which all together would be 20-inputs. Or 17 if you count double-doors as a single zone.
Currently, I have 1-digital life sensor on each window and door, 1-Zwave sensor on each window and door, and an unused hard wire system. Each window and door runs through my digital Life system for security and through the smart things system for audio speech notification of which window or door is opened. I really appreciate this functionality.
My hardwire system is currently a ball of wires in a closet. So when I do hook this up, 1:1 will be the easiest, and I can sort out which one is which at a later time. I’m looking forward to doing this right and doing it once. I will take you up on your offer!
I’d be very interested in this, but only if there was a way to pass the sensors through your board so my professionally-monitored alarm system still works independently of ST. I’m only interested in monitoring my existing alarm sensors for automation purposes. There may come a time when I trust ST for security, but now is not that time!
Good luck with the kickstarter, though! I’m glad to see more work in this space.
On of the people in this thread, @erz, did exactly that…added a small “buffer” circuit so the existing alarm system wasn’t affected but Konnected could still see the changes. He PMd me a picture because I was curious but I didn’t ask what he did since I removed my old alarm panel completely. Maybe he’ll enlighten us with the actual parts.
Pics and schematics are on this thread: https://community.smartthings.com/t/konnected-alarm-system-interconnect/102930/2
But remember that I did this for Ademco, other panels might have different requirements for threshold voltages that signal open/close contacts. I don’t think the circuits will be much different, maybe just some adjustment on the resistor values. And I agree, ST is not that fast to react to changes sometimes, and the notifications might get stuck in their queue for some time. They are now moving in the right direction by augmenting the local execution of scripts, and I think Nate can do something on his own too.
I hate asking questions when I know the answer is probably somewhere in the 407 posts before me, so please forgive me in advance. I just wanted to get a quick answer so I can put my kickstarter in.
I know I don’t have an alarm panel but I do have wires from sensors all over my house that terminate in our onq box. I just went into my closet to see how many zones I have based on how many wires I have, and I must have at least 18 unmarked pairs. Is that probably because they did a wire for each sensor instead of going the zones route? I’m trying to determine how big I need to go.
Yep, there is one wire for each sensor. The sensors are usually crimped together at the panel to make zones (not in the wall) so you can still do it. I would suggest counting up your doors and windows to figure out how many total zones you will want.
regarding “no Internet = no security system”, there is a solution for that.
You can look-up how big security companies dealing with that and you have two options:
add a cell to your system, for example freedom pop could cost you virtually nothing per month
add a ping alive from outside, for example put a free server on AWS to check your connectivity
Hey, been awhile since I’ve posted here, nice to see things sort of takeoff for you Nate. Unfortunately, with the most recent app update for iOS, it seems something about this system isn’t compatible. I haven’t changed my smartapp or device handler or code on the chip in forever. Everything has been working well for over a year. But now the app crashes before it finishes loading. SmartThings support told me it was the device handler causing the problem and I would need to remove it. I don’t believe that’s the true issue, that only brings the issue to the app. It all worked before the app update, so its something they changed. I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this yet, but wanted to put it out there. The iOS app, on 11.2+ doesn’t like something about this setup.
Take a look through this thread as the problem is clearly identified, as well as the fix for the errant DTH code. It could be another DTH, not necessarily one of Nate’s, that is causing the issue (unless ST support told you specifically which DTH has the problem.) In any event, the fix is quite easy and is documented in this thread.
Thanks, that was it. I think I must have edited some of the device handlers for this setup and put something other than “generic” for the type. I just checked the current files on the old and new github locations and don’t see any issues.
Can you sent me a picture of your setup? I am having problems with my optocoupler and getting it to trigger. I looks like I have the same one as you do.
That’s how I have it hooked up. The problem is that the siren doesn’t sound right. As I was typing this I noticed that my base doesn’t have 5v pins on it like your’s does. It only has 3v pins. I can only assume it sounds off because it doesn’t have the correct voltage. Outside of buying a different base and waiting 30+ days from china have any idea on how to get around this?
I think I know what you are talking about… I recently purchased two base boards that were slightly different for a sprinkler project and a dog feeder project using the same relays. I’ll try to see how I wired those…
Ok… my newer boards also have 3v where my old one has 5v. I used the vUSB instead because I believe USB supplies 5v. The caveat is that you must be powering the board via the miniusb plug on the ESP for these pins to be hot, if I’m not mistaken. And I will also disclaim that my other projects using the vUSB may not be as demanding as a siren, so it may not matter if the voltage is lower on the relay.
Yeah, so you’d need to power the ESP with the microusb cable instead of from the alarm board.
What happens if you just wire the siren circuit without the relay(or ESP) in the circuit…just the power from the alarm board… does it sound ok when the circuit is closed? Or does it still sound funny?
So I bypassed the relay into and put the alarm wires into a 9volt battery and it sounds like it should. I will try to use the VUSB. I was really hoping that I could get around that but it’s either that or hope I can get a board with 5v instead of 3v. I order 3 different boards from different suppliers and they are all the same. Thanks for the help man! I’ve been beating my head against the table for way to long on this one.
