Newb here, just bought ST kit and ulitech siren from Loews for a basic tripped sensor/siren security setup. I want siren to sound on tripped door/motion sensors.
-Once geofencing sees us and disarms, can I arm door sensors (leaving motion off) while at home at night? If so, how do you rearm the geofencing to full coverage upon everyone leaving in morning?
-Once sensor is tripped,and siren goes off, does it need a reset from you, can siren turn itself off, once tripped via an entered time in ST?
-How about if you dont get the push notification, does siren reset and turn off on its own?
-Everyone in house is use to turning off cells once we go down to sleep, will ST still work, does it think we are away and arms everything? Can it be set to call the house number during the night, or send email during the day?
-Plan on getting a camera setup as well. Thinking of Blink and Arlo for ease of wireless with batteries. Ive read alot of pros/cons for both. Leaning toward Blink for lower cost. Its more about being able to monitor and see if there is an intruder while we are away. Once we get a push of a tripped sensor we would be able notify police of active robbery.
-Are you better off tieing camera into ST or leave on its own and use the Blink/Arlo app?
Reading through some past threads here, it seems correct that this setup works well together, I would love input to see if Im on the right track in the manner I want to use ST.
I’ve moved this to projects so you can get responses based on your individual set up. I don’t myself use SmartThings for this kind of use case, but there are many people that do, so I’m sure you’ll get a number of replies.
Both the blink and Arlo cameras are very popular in the community. Only the Arlo has an official integration at this time, so if you want to be able to view video clips through the official smart home monitor feature, then you would need to get the Arlo.
There’s an unofficial blink integration (the author’s thread says “official” in the title, but he means that the company that Makes the blink cameras has approved his integration, it’s not official on the SmartThings side). It’s very popular. But you can only view the video through the blink apps, not through SmartThings’ smart home monitor feature. So it’s just a little more work. Many people find the cost savings still worth it.
The main advantage to tying camera into your SmartThings system is, in the case of the blink, being able to use the camera’s motion sensor as a SmartThings motion sensor as well, and being able to arm and disarm the camera automatically based on smartthings events like geopresence detection. But again, different people have different needs and preferences. Some will prefer to use the camera’s own app or tie it into a separate security system.
If I remember correctly ( It’s been a while since I took siren out of the loop) it goes of for about 30 seconds. You do need to open the ST app and acknowledge and dismiss the alert or you you keep getting push notices on your phone reminding you of the alarm
Geo-fencing goes of the last location reported to Google maps, so turning the phone off has no effect, since your phone will not be reporting a new location. The only options are Push or SMS notifications.
ST will not call the police for you. You would be surprised how much faster the police response is when you call them and say you have an intruder and can see them on your cameras.
Both. It is not an either or scenario. Use the Blink/Arlo app for what they do. Integrate with ST for the motion alerts etc to do other things.
Thx for the info. Just started unboxing and have ano error with code not logging in. Sent email to support as suggested, hope it doesn’t take long to hear back…
Support emailed me back very quick and worked with me pairing Hub and sensors.
Im having issues finding, pairing the ulitech siren from Loews, will have to see about that this afternoon. Its the Main reason we picked up system, for an audible alarm upon a break of exterior sensor.
Thanks for the help, still looking at pros/cons of Blink/Arlo for camera hook up…
