Abode is a DIY System with optional professional UL listed monitoring, founded by former executives from some major home security companies. If you only use abode itself, the home automation is somewhat limited, but it has full HomeKit Integration, so then you can take advantage of that.
Control4 is neither, it’s a “home automation as a service“ high end system that is professionally installed. Typical cost is around 10% of the cost of the home, Plus an annual maintenance fee. They do have a DIY model that was introduced a couple of years ago, but it doesn’t have the security system features, it’s more for the home theater market.
So that kind of proves my point though. Adobe is alarm system focused. It makes sense they would get that right even if there HA side is not fully up to snuff. Control4 isn’t even in the same galaxy as what i am talking about. For that amount of cost it better work flawlessly and be able to make my toast in the morning and vacuum the carpet and make my bed while i am away.
My hubitat is liked to Smartthings on the ADT Alarm Panel. The Hubconnect software allows me to share devices between both the Smartthings part of the panel and the Hubitat hub. Because the Smartthings side of the panel can see the ADT Sensors they are currently being passed to hubitat as well. Since they are fairly simple Motion or Door/Window sensors they translate easily to the other hub. Everything that isn’t the ADT Dual branded sensors has been moved to directly connect to hubitat. This includes the ADT Water sensors since they are zigbee. I have also passed everything back from hubitat to Smartthings that isn’t part of the ADT Alarm system. So Smartthings still sees all of my devices and can act on them.
Cloud connected devices like Arlo Camera and Ecobee are a little bit different.
I don’t think that’s the case. Security systems and home automation systems are two completely different animals. Security systems require a higher level of reliability, testing, etc. and that costs money.
I would not use zwave devices as security sensors. If one of my alarm sensors goes offline, has a low battery or is tampered with, I know about it in minutes and so does the monitoring station. And they will make every effort to contact someone on my call list, as well as send an email and a text notification. If one of my zwave devices goes offline, nobody cares .
S2 encrypts the connection between devices, but it doesn’t guarantee data transmission and it doesn’t provide near real-time monitoring of device health. Modern security protocols do, and protocols like PowerG have transmission distances of over a mile. Try that with a zigbee or zwave device. I wouldn’t want security sensors that depended on a mesh topology. Too many potential points of failure.
It really depends on what your expectations are from a security system. I simply would not trust my family, pets or home to any home automation device or protocol.
First of all, you can get zigbee transmissions of a mile or more. Not usually on the profiles that are used by home automation, but it’s possible. Zigbee is a very modern protocol, that’s why it’s being used as a significant part of project CHIP.
See The following discussion thread for how it’s been done in the past,
Second, Ring Alarm Sensors are UL 1023 certified, which is the residential burglary alarm standard. They are Z wave S2, and have been tested for reliable messaging. Not for a nuclear plant, but certainly the equivalent of most residential home DIY systems.
Third,
it doesn’t provide near real-time monitoring of device health.
The ring system does as well as any low cost consumer-friendly battery operated sensor system, including simplisafe.
I’m not saying you can hook up just any S2 sensor and have an equivalent security system, nor am I in any way recommending smartthings for a security system, I’m just saying that the protocol isn’t enough to knock it out.
Was not aware of either. Doesn’t change my POV that I would not rely on a mesh network for a security system.
If you want a “low cost consumer-friendly” system, and truly understand what you’re getting, great.
We’ll have to disagree on this one. When I start seeing zigbee or zwave-based systems from Qolsys, Honeywell, Nortek, etc. I’ll reconsider.
If someone breaks into my house or a fire starts or the water heater starts leaking, I expect that there’s an extremely high probability that it will be detected. Which means using sensors that do not depend on a route back to the panel that might be through a plug in dimmer acting as a repeater that my wife accidentally knocked out of the wall with the vacuum cleaner. No thanks.
One of the advantages of a self healing network like zwave is that they can find an alternative route if a specific Router is unavailable. At my house every zwave device has at least three paths to the hub. But our primary security system is a traditional brand, not Zwave. Choice is good.
Sure, if an alternative route exists. You know what you’re doing and you understand enough details of the underlying protocol to create a robust system.
Ring sells a repeater for their alarm system, but if you need it then you have device(s) with no route to the hub. Installing the repeater fixes the problem but it also becomes a single point of failure for the downstream device(s).
I wonder how many Ring alarm users are knowledgeable enough to realize that, and add multiple repeaters to create alternative routes. Can you even see the routing table in the Ring alarm hub?
You can’t see the routing for a ring system through the base utilities, but the interesting thing is that their repeater is one of the few that has a backup battery, so if it accidentally gets unplugged as in your example it will continue to function as a repeater and you will get a message in the app that it has been unplugged.
This also ensures that your security sensors will still have a path even if you have a power outage, which was required for UL certification as a security system.
RANGE: The Range Extender can be placed up to 250 feet from the Base Station. It will reach Alarm devices up to 250 feet away, in an unobstructed environment. Coverage may vary depending on the layout and construction of your home or business.
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BATTERY BACKUP: In the event of a power outage, the Range Extender has a backup battery that lasts up to 24 hours.
I installed the Hubitat Elevation Hub about a week ago. I also set-up the HubConnect apps and device handlers and it is working quite well. I can see and use ST Devices on Hubitat and Hubitat Devices on ST.
I’m very curious of what exact steps are needed to move ADT Tools 2 to Hubuitat and ensure functionality. I have the following set-up on ST currently.
Use your ADT Tools 2 App for added features of the Dual Branded Systems (trigger ST Sirens, Turn on ST Lights, Turn off/on ST Lights, ect.) this is with Arm Stay and Arm Away.
Use your ADT Tools 2 App to integrate the ADT/ST system to all of my ST Non-Dual Branded Devices for Arm Away and another child app for Arm Stay.
Use ActionTiles and Tablets in areas of my home to Arm Away, Arm Stay, or Disarm the entire system.
Use Echo Speaks from the Hubitat Hub to use my Echo devices to announce Arming Stay, or Arming Away, or Disarmed.
The system works really well but I’d like to move as much as possible to the Hubitat side including the ADT Tools 2 app.
Unfortunately because of the nature of how ADT Tools works it will never be possible to run it from the Hubitat hub. That software needs the ADT Smarththing hub device to get certain status information.
The best option is to simply replicate back to smartthings the devices you want to use with the alarm system and let them run from Smartthings.
One thing i did figure out today was a small change to the HubConnect Smartapp loaded in Smartthings that will allow the ADT system to send it’s alarm status to Hubitat to change HSM on that side. I already created a ticket with the folks behind Hubconnect to add it in as a relacement to the fully deprecated SHM integration. Once that is done you can use HSM to setup monitor and such based on the ADT Alarm status.
I finally decided to bite the bullet and got a Ring Alarm. I easily added all of my ZWave devices to Ring. Fortunately, everything I already had was compatible. I do still have a number of Zigbee devices and left those on SmartThings for now. The Ring Alarm is SO much easier for my spouse to operate. It can be set to automatically disarm when the door is unlocked with a specific code. I got the 10pc set from Costco for $129.95 so I didn’t have a huge investment. It seems like they are rapidly developing Ring and I am not worried about it going away for a while. Yes, I can’t do the same kind of automations that I can with SmartThings but I can do most of what I need with the Alexa app. I also have an Echo with the home hub, thinking about trying to move all of my Zigbee sensors over to it and be done with the SmartThings hub. Or get a Hubitat… I have read that they have a nice Hubitat Ring integration.
Not sure if this has been mentioned, so apologies if it has. I’m a poll and survey person, and just received a marketing survey that had me view multiple advertising mock-ups of an ADT+Nest collaboration, so it looks as though ADT has selected Google as their preferred smart home integration moving forward.
They have multiple integrations. They purchased a company about two years ago which they now market as “ADT blue.“. That’s intended as their low cost DIY line.
There was also a public announcement a couple of months ago that Google made a big investment into ADT itself and part of that means that ADT systems will work with Google devices. That’s for their regular professionally installed systems.
I totally echo your anger, I put $1000 into this 3 years ago and Samsung is offering me $183 now, I’m done with Samsung and I will spend $$$$ to rid my house of Samsung products, this situation is unacceptable. Good Bye Samsung, I’m voting with my feet and my $$$$. You done F’d up
I think this gives some weight to the reported end of the product at the end of last year. Just the timing was off by 6 months. I am very frustrated though as i was assured by support late december it wasn’t going anywhere. Goes so show how much they know.
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