One zwave hub send signal to ST hub

Devices & Integrations Connected Things
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Not sure what category this belongs in, but here goes. Search turned up nothing, before you ask.

I have an alarm system that has zwave capability (specifically, the Lynx system). What I ultimately want to do is have a signal sent to my computer any time the alarm system status changes (away, disarmed, whatever). I thought perhaps I could use the alarm systems zwave capability to communicate (one way only) with my ST hub, then the ST hub could relay the message to my computer. I understand two hubs can’t control the same device. I’m wondering if there is a device that the alarm system could trigger/switch/whatever, and then the ST hub could tell that the device was triggered/turned off/etc.

Any thoughts?

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That’s incorrect. Z-Wave is designed to support multiple controllers (or hubs). There’s always one primary controller, but there can be multiple secondary ones and they all can control the same devices. You should be able to include your alarm as a secondary controller into SmartThings Z-Wave network. Search for “secondary controller” on the forums.

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Thanks for your response. Hmmm, you are certainly correct for most hubs. However, I think the Honeywell Lynx L5200 (that’s the alarm system I have) does not permit being a secondary hub (or allowing other hubs to be secondary to it). Regardless, if I could make the Lynx secondary, how does it get a signal to the ST hub? That’s the part that I’m stumped on and is the critical aspect. I’m trying to use the ST hub to relay the status of the alarm system to my computer. From what I read in other posts, primary and secondary hubs can’t communicate with each other, just control the same devices.

And I’m sure someone is going to ask, but no, I’m not going to use ST as my alarm system.

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Your alarm system is designed to control other devices, but what you need is for it to report its status, i.e. to act as an endpoint. That’s not possible. You can try linking two systems using a switch, for example, that your alarm would turn on when armed and turn off when disarmed. The SmartThings can poll the same switch to learn your alarm status.

Alternatively, if your alarm has AUX output (dry contacts) you could wire them to a Z-Wave door/window sensor and program your alarm to close the AUX output when armed.

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If you could make it secondary, or if it works for you to have smartthings as a secondary to the lynx, they don’t “send a signal” of the kind that you’re envisioning, that contains content information like “I just changed to arm status.”

They just send information about The shared Z wave devices, and then only if the secondary has the ability to check for updates, which many do not.

Z wave communicates in a set of very structured command transmissions. Even the primary controller.

And unfortunately smartthings is not really designed to “play nice” with other Z wave controllers, so it doesn’t do the listen for updates thing.

If lynx could be added as a secondary Z wave controller, you could have it turn on a Z wave switch when it arms and then have smartthings respond to that switch coming on.

I’m not 100% sure, but if smartthings is added as a secondary, I don’t think it will be aware of the switch status when the lynx turns it on (because it doesn’t do that listen for updates thing), but it’s possible that you could just poll that switch every five minutes or so and then respond to that. Note that adding polling traffic to your network may slow down the rest of the network, though. :disappointed_relieved:

What most people do when trying to combine smartthings with a non-Z wave alarm system is the add an additional bridge device that actually checks the current on one of the other system sensors. You can use the quick browse list in the community – created wiki, look in the project reports section, and look under security to see what some other people have done.

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Quick_Browse_the_Community-Created_SmartApps_Forum_Section

Alternatively, if your alarm system can send an email or a text, you could have that go to IFTTT as the “if” in an applet and have smartthings turn on a virtual switch as the “that.” Then have SmartThings respond to that switch coming on. this can work quite well, it is easy to set up, and doesn’t require any additional devices, but it may introduce some lag because of the time it takes IFTTT to respond to and process the trigger event.

There are some other more Rube Goldberg approaches, but I think these are the most straightforward.

One) put the two zwave controllers on the same network, have one turn on the switch and have the other respond to the switch turning on. Whether this will not work or not depends on the exact features of each controller.

Two) use a bridge device to monitor electrical activity on one system and report it to the other

(updated to add as @geko notes above, this could be as simple as wiring an open/close sensor on the SmartThings network to a device on the lynx network)

  1. if both controllers have an IFTTT channel/service, use it. If only one does ( and SmartThings does), see if the one that doesn’t could send email or text to IFTTT instead.
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Yes, this is exactly what I’m looking to do! :slight_smile: I just don’t know how to do that…yet :cry: I see the individual in the next post has given a similar response, I will try to follow that and see if I can get there. thank you!

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A technical note about multiple controllers…

The SmartThings hub contains both a Z wave controller and a zigbee coordinator.

The zigbee home automation profile, which is the one that smartthings uses, only allows for one coordinator per network.

The Z wave standard allows for only one primary controller per network, but does let you add additional “secondary” controllers. The popular Aeon minimote becomes a secondary controller when it is on a SmartThings network.

The secondary controller is allowed to send commands to the end devices that belong to the primary controller’s network. It may or may not receive status information when the primary controller sends a message to an end device.

So a Z wave device can only belong to one network, but that network might include some secondary controllers, typically handheld remotes or wall panel button pads.

Smartthings can be added as a secondary controller to another Z wave network, but it’s not very sophisticated in its features. And when you do add it in this fashion, all it’s doing is gaining the ability to send zwave commands to the Z wave devices that belong to the primary controller. It won’t be able to share any other information and the primary controller will not gain The ability to access SmartThings zigbee network or cloud or anything else. The only thing that will be shared are the Z wave devices.

The smartthings official position on using their hub as a secondary has changed over the years, and they now “strongly discourage” it. They also say they will no longer provide any support if you are trying to use SmartThings as a secondary.

SmartThings strongly discourages adding the Hub to another Z-Wave network. We cannot offer support for disconnected Z-Wave devices or the inability to add devices through the Hub as a result of including the Hub into another Z-Wave network.

So… You cannot add the SmartThings hub to another zigbee network. You can add it to another Z wave network, but you should know a lot about zwave before trying it because SmartThings support is not going to help you with this.

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Yes, I can get an email or text from the alarm system. The catch is I don’t want my phone to be part of the equation. I tried setting up rules in outlook to run a script based on the email it received from the alarm system. It was working for awhile, but some update must have occured in outlook, because now the macro trust level is all mucked up and won’t run my script. I’m not smart enough (yet) to figure out how to fix that, though i’ve tried signing it and putting the signing certificate in all the right spots. At this point, some communication path via ST seems more reliable than outlook. I’m checking out the link you provided, it seems very promising. Thank you! I’ll try to report back what I come up with.

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If you use IFTTT, you’re not going to use your own phone. The free IFT TT service assigns you a dummy number and that is the one that will receive the text.

They do have a limit on the number of outgoing text messages their system can send each month, I don’t know if there’s a limit on incoming, or if that limit would be high enough for your purposes.