Driveway alarm?

I am looking for a Driveway alarm, I would like notification when someone pulls into my driveway basically, using ST. I have about 100 feet to the end of the driveway from the house and my smart things controller. I have seen the Dakota 2500 with a door sensor setup, but was wondering if there are others out there as well that work with ST.

Thank you!

1 Like

I’m also interested. I used to have the dakota at my last place and might do the same if i dont find a solution.

I take it that the Dakota 2500 is a beam that you set up at the end of your drive and if someone/something crosses it it will notify you. Does it work with ST?

Not sure if you searched the forum before posting, but there are several threads in this topic. This one mentions another:

I did see that post, seemed to be a discussion but I don’t recall seeing details on setup. I will revisit.
Link to Dakota setup, David

6 Likes

Thanks for the video link! Just what I needed.

Dakota + Konnected = the bomb.

Did you connect the Dakota motion alert kit to one of the Konnected inputs? What sensor type did you set it up as, motion sensor?

Yes to input, and yes motion.

Great, I will have to look into that
And thank you for your prompt reply!

Purchased, and awaiting arrival!!

For everyone still looking found a cheap way of doing it with a homeseer flex sensor

I use (2) Guardline drive way receivers and transmitters. Each receiver has a door contact sensor wired into the relay provided by the receiver. I have 2 of these so I can determine if a vehicle is arriving or departing. I set up automation that announces, “We have company” over alexa, turns on outside lighting if someone arrives after dark, sends text notifications if someone arrives and we are not present, etc… Without knowing if someone is arriving or departing its much more difficult and in some cases not possible to set up these type automations. Its all about what your trying to accomplish.

I tend to think outside the box and am not sure this is possible.

This is the same as the Harbor Freight driveway alarm that I have.

Just need a Thing that can recognize the alert from the receiver. It has an alert tone and 3 red LEDs that flash when motion is detected. Someone good with a soldering iron could even connect directly to the circuit board.

I have one of these for a different purpose. It likes a fresh 9 volt battery in the transmitter every 6 weeks, more if a lot of motion is detected. The receiver can be wall powered or by 3 AA batteries. I do not use batteries in the receiver so battery life is untested.

Since it is a driveway alarm, the sensor can be placed outdoors.

Update: I’ve been using the Dakota paired with the contact sensor which has the output (can’t remember brand) for 9 months now.

It’s does exactly what I wanted, or did actually. I was using Hubitat Hub back then and had it configured so when the driveway motion sensor triggered, Hubitat told Google Home to announce on whichever of my Minis I selected the announcement I set. It was really funny too, because I had it set to a British woman’s voice and I had it say “Pardon the interruption, good sir. Someone had just pulled into the driveway”, which garnered a lot of laughs from friends.

Alas, as I’ve already whined about, upon returning to SmartThings, I was disappointed to find out that the same funtionality of the hub triggering a Google Home announcement is not possible, at least easily possible, without adding some other devices.

If you use Amazon Echo instead, you’ll be good to go. My dad chose the Echo over the Google Home, and there are 3rd party SmartApps which bridge the gap.

I’m going to make it work with one of three solutions, I just haven’t figured out which yet.

  1. Leave the Hubitat Hub turned on for just this application, and maybe for a few others where local control is advantageous.
  2. Setup the additional node device to bridge the capabilities gap
  3. Use IFTTT to act as a cloud to cloud solution, however I haven’t looked to see if this would actually work, and would need to see if latency would be a problem.

Other than that, the Dakota works great!!

“I set up automation that announces, “We have company” over alexa, turns on outside lighting” Could you give me some details on how you triggered Alexa please…Steve Chase

I’m using WebCore for the program and Echo Speaks to expose alexa as a device for voice commands.