Home alarm systems often have a small LED on the keypad which indicate when the system is “armed”.
Being that I do all my arming/disarming from the Smartthings app, I’d like to create something which can provide that indication to others in the house so they don’t accidentally open doors without disarming in the morning.
Is there any such device available? Obviously it would need to be zigbee or zwave to communicate with Smartthings. Would need one good with battery life or mains powered. Right now I have been using a small nightlight plugged in to a smart switch, but it’s a bit more than what I was hoping for, for this purpose.
What country are you in? The device options do vary.
Most of the options I know are plug-ins. You just can’t really get enough battery life at this time to operate a light as well as the home automation radio.
3rd reality has a nice plug in nightlight which now comes in a matter over WiFi option. That would probably be my first choice these days.
They also have a Zigbee version if you prefer that.
For those in the US, homeseer offers a similar zwave device:
It’s crazy that something like a small, battery powered device with a red, yellow and green LED doesn’t exist. IKEA could do it for $4 (battery included).
Devices like that exist, but they aren’t smart because the amount of power required to keep the radio in an “always listening“ state (so it can hear the next command from the home automation network) is just too high. That’s just physics for now. So the ones that exist right now are controlled with a handheld remote so they don’t need the “always listening“ aspect.
We may get there eventually, but we need new battery technology to do so.
I might prefer a mains-powered device if it’s small. Then I don’t have to worry about battery.
I have one higher outlet that would be perfect, but unless it’s a small LED, the problem I’ll have is it will light up a foyer if the device is as bright as a night light, which I’d like to avoid doing.
In the case of the Third Reality devices, it’s pretty easy to tape over the light bar at the bottom and just leave a small cut out for the Indicator light. So that might be another option.
But @Paul_Oliver ‘s suggestion of the homeseer light switch would probably be better if you have a good place to put it.
JKnight
(Keeping SmartThings limping along since 2013.)
8
They are expensive, but I use Inovelli switches to do exactly this… among their many other uses. I have the switch nearest each exit door show a red LED notification indicating that the alarm is armed, and it briefly flashes green on disarm. Been working great for a few years now, and has also been a game changer when it comes to avoiding false alarms.
I love the switches, with their LED notifications, and I use them to trigger different routines, turn on hard to reach devices, notify me if the garage is left open, notify of water leaks, etc. My only minor complaint is the lack of a proper matte white paddle to match the rest of the switches in my house.
I use the Inovelli switches in the same way. I use the strobing red effect when the system is armed. I have them flash green for a minute when the system is disarmed and then go back to the base color. I have one of the Homeseer HSM200 LED to alert me to when the garage doors have been left open.
At my house, we use a Zooz ZEN32 Scene Controller to switch to ‘Night’ mode (or back to ‘Home’ if we get up before an automation runs that does it). The LED color of the button may be changed via a Routine, so you can tell at a glance what Location Mode you are in at any time.
If a Scene (um, 'Manually Run Routine") is run to, let’s say, arm Home Monitor–either right away or some time after pressing the button, you could change its color to match the state you’re in: Green = Disarmed, Yellow = Arming Timer Running, or Red = Armed, as an example.
You could always just buy a Ring keypad, since it will sync with STHM state and show whether your alarm is on or not. It does all the other things an alarm keypad can do too, but you don’t necessarily need to integrate it into your ST alarm setup. It’s also rechargeable, so you could mount it right next to the door or wherever is most convenient.
I understand the issue with not wanting the RBoy driver. There is a community driver. I originally used this and it worked fine. There were some additional features available on the RBoy driver that I wanted since I am using the full STHM and SLGA modules. After I thought about this from my last post, this might not be an ideal use for this device. Although it can display different statuses, the keypad goes to sleep and does not show the indicators until the proximity sensor is activated. There maybe a way to change this, but unless you’re on A/C power, it might drain the battery quickly. Just my 2cents.
