I use smart alarm to monitor motion sensors and other sensors. I want to create a “House Being Cleaned” mode, so that when the house cleaner is here and all my family members are away, it does not go into Arm Away mode but stay in Arm Stay. I only want it to be set in this mode on certain days and certain hours. Any idea? I created a mode but it only have a “start time” but no end time.
You can create a routine that runs at the specific time that you want the house cleaning to end. This routine can then set the mode back to (I’m guessing) away and set the alarm back to Arm (Away). And that routine should be set to only runs when in “cleaner” mode.
If you want to use times and days you can use 2 routines to accomplish this. One to set disarm/arm (stay) and another to set arm(away). Both can be set @ a certain time on certain days of the week.
I’d personally use a door unlock code to set the house cleaner as “present” (virtual presence) and motion sensors to trigger “not present” but every config is different.
If I create a routine to set the cleaner present to begin say Monday 9:00am and then when everyone leaves the house at 9:30am, would the routine goes to “AWAY” and override the “HOUSE CLEANER” mode?
This is where you need to keep your routines and modes straight. E.g. your cleaner routine can put the house in, say, “Cleaner” mode. Then you set your goodbye routine to only run when the mode is, say, “Home”.
Hi. Did you find a good way to accomplish this? I am considering buying the ST hub and setting it up, primarily for security. I am trying to figure out how to make it work peacefully with the need to have the cleaners come in periodically. Time-based settings are a little tricky as they sometimes need to change time of day or even day of week, based on their workload. So far, I can only see these possible options:
- Go with the day/time-based settings, as you’ve described above (assume I can get it set up correctly)
- Get an electronic lock for the door, and give them a special code (wasn’t really planning on this, so not really ideal)
- Give them a presence sensor fob (not ideal)
- Make the hub recognize their cell phone (assuming one of them has a smart phone, again not ideal)
Really my preferred method would be to have them text me when they are in my driveway, and I would disarm the entire system remotely. Is that possible?
I intend to have door sensors, motion sensors, and a strobe/siren, all of which would be armed when we are away.
Thanks!
Yes. You can easily open the phone app and disarm the Smart Home Monitor, or even set up a routine to trigger from a home screen widget.
That is essentially what I do. When SmartThings alerts me to an intrusion at the time when I expect the cleaners, I will check with the outside camera to see that their vehicle is parked outside, and then change the mode to disarm the alarm notifications.
If you want to get fancy, you can even use IFTTT with text to automatically do that, although that’s a bit of a security risk.
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