How to integrate Arlo Hub siren to my Smartthings system

I have an Arlo Pro 3 camera system with a hub that has a siren in it.
I have a SmartThings kit with 2 contact sensors, one motion sensor and one smart plug - I believe the hub is not the latest but the 2015 model.

This is my first post. I should have installed all this before we got broken into, right? I only have 2 days to figure this out so I appreciate any help you can give me.

I have two contact sensors that I placed on 2 different windows. They are working well, they detect every time the window is opened. I want the Arlo siren in the the Arlo hub to sound when either of these contacts is open.

How do I integrate the Arlo system into the SmartThings system and how do I create a routine (or is it an app?) to sound the Arlo siren when these contacts are open?

Again thank you and sorry I can’t spend a lot of time researching this. Any help or pointers are muxh appreciated!

The following will help you figure out which hub you have. We do need to know that.

Also, we need to know which country you are in.

As long is you are using the classic app, the following article has the steps for triggering the Arlo Siren from smartthings. I don’t have Arlo cameras myself, so I don’t know if all of this is still current. Hopefully someone who does have them will chime in. But since you’re in a rush, I figured you might as well start with this and see if it works. :sunglasses:

Click on the wheel on the home page then select Security. When you get past the sensors to use when Armed Away and Home, select Alert with Sirens and see if your Arlo siren(s) are listed there. If so you are in good shape. Then you can select the custom rules and also see if the sirens are there when you select Alert With Sirens).

Brian

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Yes, it is definitely a 2015 version of the hub. I am in Canada.

Alert with sirens does not work as there is nothing listed there for me to pick. I also did a search from there for “Arlo” and nothing shows up. I think I have to integrate the Arlos into SmartThings first and then maybe it’ll find it?

Thank you for this I will give it a good read.

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I am trying to remember how I accomplished this, but it was nearly two years ago. In the Arlo app do you have the sirens listed under your base stations in Settings > My Devices? Seems to me that I had to manually add the sirens from the Devices page. I will keep trying to remember.
How they showed up in Smartthings I can not remember. I will try to Google this.

Brian

I believe that if you go into the Smartthings Marketplace > Cameras > Arlo Pro, the siren should show up as something you can control. This should habe happened when you first added your Arlo Pro camera.
Go into Arlo and give the siren a different name like, “Pro Siren.”
If you haven’t named the siren to something other than the name of the base station, it will show up as the base station, but if you renamed it, the new name should show up in the list.
Once that is done you should be able to use it elsewhere.

Brian

There are a few things to think about here.

First what smarthings hub do you have and when did you get it. If you just picked it up you may want to return it and look at the ADT Smartthigs panel. That is a alarm systems that also has smartthings built into it. The two environments are silo’d from each other, but some information is passed.

If that isn’t an option you probably need to use something like Smart Home Monitor. That is a Smartapp that will setup a kind of home security system. When you setup SHM you get a cloud based alarm system that will monitor door/window sensor, Motion sensors, smoke sensor, CO Sensor. I believe you can tell it what siren to use. As HBR indicated once the Arlo cameras are added all of your cameras and the built in siren appear in Smartthings. Since the siren is in the base that is the device for it. If you don’t rename it that is the device you want to select for it.

2 things to think about either way you do this. Frist The Arlo Siren is a cloud based device. That means if the smartthings cloud or the arlo cloud is having issues there is a chance it will not go off. Along with that the SHM application somewhat functions in the cloud. This means there is a chance for it to not work either.

My suggestion if you really want security to be a priority is to get the ADT Smartthings panel because it’s security functionality is all local and doesn’t depend on Smartthings to work. It will include a built in siren. It isn’t as loud as the Arlo though. If you choose not to do that, then at least get a dedicated siren that connects directly to the hub.

If you decide to get the ADT Smartthigns panel look at the ADT Tools 2 Smarttapp. That will allow you to use the siren with your alarm. If you go with the SHM i believe it will allow you to select it as a siren device when you go through the setup.

Thanks everyone for your input!
Buying the ADT system was not an option.

So here’s what I did. I added the Arlo to SmartThings. This created a “SmartThings Mode” in my Arlo app. (by default the app comes with Armed (away), Armed (stay) and Disarmed modes).
Then I went into “Automation” in the SmartThings app and somehow (don’t remember at this point how) I created an Automation event to sound the Arlo Hub Alarm is either contacts 3 or 4 were to open. Then, my Arlo app was forced to “SmartThings Mode” all on its own.
The contacts 3 and 4 are taped together and were never opened. Somehow though the alarm would be triggered and turn on (it’s very loud) - and I found out, it will be on forever and has to be turned off manually.
Did not really work. But it seems that some other triggers will make it go. Still trying to work through it.

It may be the case that the integration is not fully working 100% - maybe they just don’t work together well.
I will try again.

Thank you all.

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The Smartthings Mode in Arlo is buggy. Simply leave the Arlo system in the Armed mode and control everything through Smartthings routines. All Smartthings is doing is turning the on/off slider switch for whatever cameras are selected, so you will not be draining the batteries, in fact you may be saving some battery life compared to the way Arlo does things, (cameras on all the time and controlled by their Armed and Disarmed modes).
For example:
I have the Goodbye routine activate, (turn on), all of my indoor and outdoor cameras.
I have the Good Night routine activate only my outdoor cameras.
I use the Good Morning routine to deactivate, (turn off), all the indoor and outdoor cameras.
I made a custom routine called Deliveries to only turn on my front outside cameras when I am expecting a package delivery.

Brian

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If you set up custom rules for your indoor cameras or sensors, you can Alert With Sirens, chose your sirens and set the duration of the siren blasting, (default is 5 minutes).

Brian

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I also have two scenes set up to manually turn on the sirens and manually turn them off. I named them"
Sirens On
Sirens Off

Brian

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Have you tried to use Smart Home Monitor. That smart app is specifically for security and will integrate with Arlo. I would suggest you install it from the classic app as the new one doesn’t allow integration well with other things.

There are two houses of thinking when managing the Arlo camera. As HBR said one of them is simply leave it in armed state in the Arlo cloud and turn on and off the cameras in smarthings. The other is to not do anything from smart things and use a app called Arlopilot to control the arlo modes in the arlo cloud. That will allow certain actions in smart things to change Arlo modes. Both methods have there pro’s and cons. if you have more then just the cameras though it quickly leans towards Arlopilot. One if the biggest cons for leaving Arlo in Armed mode is that Smartthings can’t control all aspects of the Arlo cameras, just some items. Keep that in mind when deciding how to set it up.

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I have have never heard of Arlopilot before - sounds good… but something else to experiment with!
Seems the consensus is to leave the Arlo in Armed mode and control everything from SmartThings.
I wish all this were a little simpler to set up!

Thanks again.

Are you using Smart Home Monitor, or just creating routines. I would really suggest you look at SHM

I used ArloPilot for awhile and I do not have any qualms about telling someone to use it, but Arlo is making so many changes lately with Smart Notifications, the Arlo doorbell, the Arlo lights and a totally new approach with the Arlo Ultra, I wonder if the author of Arlopilot will keep on top of that. Secondly, will Arlopilot work in the new app?

Brian

I created routines - but I will look at SHM - I think I used it before for something else.

SHM is for the devices that you want to use for Intruder Alerts. In other words, your indoor cameras, motion and open/close sensors, etc. would be used in SHM, but you probably do not want an Intrusion alert if your outside camera detected the mailman or the neighbor’s dog, etc.
Also SHM will not arm/disarm your cameras.

Brian