Honeywell Vista Alarm Integration Project

Hi y’all,

I’m new here, but wanted to share a project I made for my own benefit. It connects older Honeywell Vista alarm systems to Smartthings/your hub of choice via a z wave interpreter. Basically what happens is a z wave module is connected to the hub. When it receives a command, a programmed micro-controller interprets the state and then outputs the correct response for the alarm system. This idea might seem “hacky”, and it is in its early stages (currently allows arm and disarm), but you could expand as you see fit. Basically, this allows you to control these old alarm systems without paying for TotalConnect or buying some high-cost modules for the Vista systems. You can arm/disarm anywhere in the world and also use triggers to do the same. Want to disarm automatically when you arrive home? Done.

I’ve written all of this up on Instructables. Here’s the link!

If you’re interested or have questions, please let me know!

That is pretty clever project and I wish I had seen this a few years back when the options for integration were slim. Great pics and detailed instructions. Kudo’s.

Years ago, I installed the RaspberryPI AlarmDecoder AD2PI Network Appliance system which simply connects 4 colored wires to the Vista Alarm main panel (no soldering) creating a program controlled virtual keypad. Alarmdecoder seamlessly integrates to SmartThings and provides both a web based andLinux/Mac/PC virtual keyboards.

SmartThings receives API updates to my home’s Alarm zone states and whenever SmartThings SHM is armed/disarmed, so is my Vista Honeywell. They are both in state sync which is nice and when used with WebCore pistons, one can customize how/when the arm is armed/disarmed, etc.

Hi Kurt - thanks! And actually, I hadn’t seen this device before when I was looking around. Probably a much easier and more elegant way to proceed. I like that it reports zones as well. My background is in electrical engineering, so I’m much more apt to try something hardware based with a small amount of API work instead of the other way around - but it’s good to see that there are other solutions. I wish Wink had the forums that Smartthings does. There’s some pretty neat stuff going on here.

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