[OBSOLETE] DSC -> EVL-3(4) -> Alarmserver -> Smartthings

Are you referring to EOL Conversion? Sorry, I’m a python newbie. I’m using notepad ++

yeah, and any other funky non-visible characters. not really a python thing, more just differences between text file formats between OS

I figured out the issue. You have to CD to the folder with all your Alarm files to run the python script otherwise I guess it can’t find the CFG file. If you run it from your main directory even if you point it to the exact script location it won’t work. @Swampmatt did you try this?

Hi everyone,

I have set a daily reboot of the rPi and I noticed that sometimes the alarm state changes on restart of the server, for example if the alarm is armed stay it will change in Away arm and vice versa.

Anyone experienced similar issue?

Hey again @Xero. So I was playing in the new ST app… Tried to open then stay and away panels in it but it just says “Can’t connect to the device. Check it and try again later”. Any thoughts?

Same problem here on the new ST app. Dashboard panels and Device screen stay in “checking status”. Clicking on them say “Can’t connect to device. Check device and try again.”

However, the Automation screen under SMH shows each device status and is updating correctly.

ah fun. i got the email to update myself just the other day but i haven’t had time in all honesty.

I’ll have to try and figure out what’s going on soon when i have some time.

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Hello. Did you find an answer to unmute the sirens. I have the same problem. Any help would be appreciated.

For anyone that’s interested, it is possible for alarmserver to run on Synology with the preinstalled python 2.7 (with DSM 6 at least). The tricky part is that you must install pip (which is NOT preinstalled) and then use pip to install requests. After that, setup is very similar to the oft used raspberrypi. You can use task scheduler in the Synology GUI to manually execute and/or start it up on reboot (this uses cron).

Now for my question, @Xero. As has been noted by @D_Gjorgjievski, 88fingerslukee, and Mike7, an alarmserver restart results in Stay Alarm switching to Away Alarm if the system is armed in Stay when the restart occurs. I believe this is because alarmserver sends *1 to the EVL/panel after a restart. Unfortunately, according to the DSC manual:

"Press[*][1] when the system is armed in the Stay mode to change the armed status to Away mode. "

I can’t think of an easy way around this. There is a motion detector in my bedroom, so a change to Away mode in the middle of the night is not ideal for the family’s mental health.

Unfortunately, comcast is my lone choice of internet provider, and their often flaky internet results in alarmserver restarts and/or freezes (the server ceases to receive zone info from the EVL, and I have to restart one or both). For whatever reason, these tend to happen overnight. When the internet connection is stable, alarmserver will run for days without trouble.

I’ve just undertaken installing Alarmserver on a Linux VM, and am hitting an odd error with an input handler. It looks like it does not know how to parse the login prompt from the Envisalink. I can telnet to it, and login, but cannot get alarmserver to do it. My log output is below. Thanks in advance.

Using configuration file alarmserver.cfg
2018-05-06 20:48:05 Alarm Server Starting
2018-05-06 20:48:05 Currently Supporting Envisalink 2DS/3/4 only
2018-05-06 20:48:05 Tested on a DSC PC1616 + EVL-3
2018-05-06 20:48:05 and on a DSC PC1832 + EVL-2DS
2018-05-06 20:48:05 and on a DSC PC1832 v4.6 + EVL-4
2018-05-06 20:48:05 and on a DSC PC1864 v4.6 + EVL-3
2018-05-06 20:48:05 myURL: https://graph.api.smartthings.com/api/smartapps/installations/######/installzones?access_token=######
2018-05-06 20:48:05 myURL: https://graph.api.smartthings.com/api/smartapps/installations/######/installpartitions?access_token=######
2018-05-06 20:48:05 Envisalink Proxy Started
2018-05-06 20:48:05 Connected to 192.168.200.14:4025
2018-05-06 20:48:05 Unsupported input! This could be a bug. Input was:Login:
2018-05-06 20:48:15 Unsupported input! This could be a bug. Input was:Timed Out!
2018-05-06 20:48:15 Disconnected from 192.168.200.14:4025

Hi @Xero

I’m trying to follow the readme and config file notes, but I have a few questions on things that aren’t making sense right now.

In the config file:

	[pushover]
	enable=False
	usertoken=tokengoeshere
  • What is the usertoken, where is it found? I see the access token. Is this different?

Under SmartApp Setup, there is a line for Once OAuth setup is completed". To this point I haven’t entered the OAuth Client ID or Client Secret from IDE anywhere. Do I need to?

For the IP/Port (same line in readme), is that the port I opened for the Pi or EVL4? On my router I opened 8111 to my Pi and 4025 to EVL4. In the config file, towards the top, there is an entry for the “port used by the smartapp”. I entered 8111 for now. Later in the file there is a mention of the default EVL4 port as 4025. Am I correct on all of this? Also on the smartapp on my phone for DSC Integration, for IP I have the internal IP of my Pi (192.168.1.xxx) and Port is 8111. I’m assuming it is ok to have an internal IP, not my external IP and port. If that makes sense.

Next, for “First, edit ‘alarmserver.cfg’ and add in the OAuth/Access Code information to the callback_url_app_id and callbackurl_access_token values”, how is this done exactly?

So I have the callback_url_app_id in the config file as: callbackurl_app_id=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx and callbackurl_access_token=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx. Where does the OAuth info go?

Lastly, when it is mentioned to “Fire up the Alarmserver”, what does this mean? I have the files residing on my pi. I tried to open the alarmserver.py file and ‘run’, but I got a syntax error. Perhaps because I am trying to run prematurely. Should something be done with the devices.py file?

Ok, I lied…one more. There is a file included in the GitHub, alarmserver.service. Should something be done with this file? There seems to be some instructions embedded in the file.

Thanks. Sorry for the noob questions.

Hi Mark, do you have your docker container version available by any chance? Thanks

OK weird i’ve never witnessed it switch from stay to away when it restarts, I’ll have to check into that…

From the EVL TPI:

Bypassed Zones Bitfield Dump
This command is issued upon leaving Zone Bypass programming (*1 on
the keypad). It is a 16 character HEX string representing an 8 byte bitfield.
This bitfield indicates which zones are currently in bypass. A “1” indicates
the zone is in bypass. The lower 8 zones are in the first position of the
bitfield. The developer can force this dump by using the keystring
commands to enter and leave zone bypassing. i.e. “*1#”

Looking through the alarmserver code, it appears to send this command on only a few occasions:
handle_login
refresh command sent from Smartthings
bypass command sent from Smarththings
after a disarm

It’s the first two that are the problem, and I’ve been able to reproduce the symptoms. If you set the alarm in Stay mode and then go into Smartthings and hit “refresh”, in about a minute the system will quietly change to Away. This also happens if the internet connection or the connection between the Smartthings hub and the alarm server is interrupted while the system is set in Stay mode (this happened to me last week; the internet went out overnight but was back on when I woke up. The alarm had switched to Away from Stay and I set it off when I got out of bed).

I have had that happen too. My network reboots once a week as does the server. When it comes back up it goes to away mode instead of home mode. On another note, did you move tot he new ST and did it break the integration?

I did eventually try out the new app, i’m basically still able to use both, so it’s not a huge deal.

but yeah - the alarm panel doesn’t work for some reason in the new app. I’ll have to see why.

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Interesting. I don’t see arm stay or arm away switches in the new ST.

Hi

I have two issues wondering if anyone has any insight:

  1. The ST app does not report the alarm status - so it just says “Ready” instead of “Armed” even when the alarm is armed. It’s actually working fine otherwise.
  2. Does anyone know how I could get my exterior lights to go on when the alarm triggers? I can’t find how to interrogate the alarm in ST to know that it’s gone off and thus attach an event to it - and IFTTT same problem.

Thanks @Xero for such a great integration - really simple to setup and effective.

Hello everyone,
So I have been exposed to Linux a little before and I do have 2 Raspberry Pi’s running at this time. I am just having a heck of a time trying to add the alarmserver to one of my existing Pi’s. I do not have the script to load it on there and I have went through all of the posts here. And I still feel lost. There isn’t one post that actually shows the complete script for the programming of alarmserver into the Pi. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

TIA

Robert

Robert,

Please see the readme located on the GitHub. Also if you’re having an issue finding the unchanged (factory) config file, you can find it here. https://github.com/LXXero/DSCAlarm/blob/master/alarmserver/alarmserver.cfg

Make changes there according to the readme as needed.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by script, as the installation of this product is a manual process, but generally nothing more complicated than copying config files to the proper locations and changing the config accordingly.