I am somewhat new to SmartThings, having only used the starter kit for a little while now. I am a college student away from my mom and trying to make things easier and more secure for her since she lives alone.
Long story short, she is wanting to have the First Alert Smoke Detector in the basement, near the furnace…we have two-story house (plus the basement). Since I don’t have the products, I didn’t have a way of testing, but is possible to have the Aeon Lab Siren trigger when/if the Smoke Detector is set off?
I want to ‘assume’ this is possible, but I don’t want to invest in products if they aren’t going to work as expected. The siren itself will be located in the hallway on the second floor, where our bedrooms are.
Is it also possible to have a difference between what tone is being sounded? In other words, can I have the siren sound one way for intruders then a different tone for a fire/co2 alert?
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
2
Yes, but you shouldn’t count on SmartThings for anything that may affect your safety. Hopefully you can also hear the Smoke Detectors own beep.
If the Siren has different tones built in, then SmartThings can trigger them… But a custom device handler may be required.
external siren depends on internet - I suggest don’t implement external siren and certainly do not depend on it. False alarms make the external siren especially disturbing because the cause of external siren is then not obvious without checking the ST log - so it is easy and wrong to assume that the siren is a malfunction or a different cause by ST.
I and others have experienced Zcombo (First Alert Zwave smoke&CO detector) false alarm, and it did not appear to be caused by ST or internet connection. For me the false alarm occurred twice Sep30 and appeared to be reported directly by the Zcombo smoke detection function. Of course the Zcombo built-in siren sounded.
FYI I suggest keep it simple with a standalone smoke and/or CO detector.
You have to send a “configure” command to the device to change the siren type.
Yes, but I believe in multiple redundancies for anything that concerns safety. My smoke alarms have 3 sirens hooked up to it, incase one of the sirens is… you know… on fire… lol
Also, the smoke alarms are hooked together so they all alarm as well. I tested it once and I don’t want it to happen again it was so loud, lol.
1 Like
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
5
Well … that means it is possible with some clever code. The Device Handler for the siren could be written to send a “reconfigure” just before activating the desired selection of tone!
Thanks for this information. While I understand that SmartThings is not a professional/monitored service, it fits the need that I am looking for. I just want to make sure that if an alarm in the basement is triggered that those on the second floor are able to hear it and get out in a timely manner. I have most of the system rigged to contact either my neighbor or myself in which I can hope on to look at cameras and see what is going on.
Spinning off the original question, if I had multiple Smoke Detectors, do they all trigger when one of them are set off, or just the one being affected?
