I am wondering whether anyone has implemented a fake code to disarm shm upon entry by recognizing a known sequence of button presses and/switch activations. The idea is - if door opens while SHM is set to arm you announce on a speaker that the person entering has 60 seconds to disarm the alarm… followed by a sequence of tones. Then WebCore or some other smartapp would check for a known button press (only if in shm disarm mode). Then it would check for next button press and so on. Upon getting the last one correct SHM would be disarmed and the beeps stopped. If a minute passes and that doesn’t happen then play a loud alarm on all speakers, flash the lights, and send a txt to the owner.
At present this is just an idea that I would like to implement because we never use our real alarm system. It doesn’t notify use remotely and is too prone to false alarms and quite frankly we forget to use it. With the above appproach the alarm would be set always when we are gone. Before proceeding I thought I would check to see if anything like this already exists.
I don’t understand what you mean by a “fake code.“ That sounds like a real code to me, it’s just that what it is disarming is the local security you have set up through SmartThings. But it is actually disarming that.
If a code would typically be what is also called a “duress“ code Dash Dash where you enter a code that makes it look like the system was disarmed, but in fact a message is sent to the monitoring center to tell them that you were forced to disarm the system by intruder. But again, I don’t think that’s what you’re asking for.
If you just asking if you could have a pin code to prevent certain events from happening, sure. @tgauchat had a stand-alone smartap for this a couple of years ago, although I think these days people would probably just use webcore.
With webCoRE and the correct compatible sensors, you are only limited by your imagination…well within reason.
There are many ways my Alarm System (AS) disarms. 1st, I was able to connect my existing AS to SmartThings (ST) using a custom app and Device Type Handler (DTH) called Alarm Server. It runs on a Pi3 and shows up in ST as a thing along with 28 sensors that are physically attached to it. All of these are now usable as things for other automation purposes as well. Might want to check to see if your existing AS can be connected.
I also have regular ST compatible sensors that works in tandem with Smart Home Monitor (SHM). As I am sure you know, SHM is ST built-in AS…
Here are some examples:
If Door unlocks then disarm system
If Someone arrives then disarm system
If time is between x and y and motion is detected then disarm
If time is between x and y and no motion has been detected for x minutes then arm
If everyone leaves then arm
With webCoRE, you can setup whatever rule you like such as:
SHM doesn’t have a built in delay, well at least the Classic App doesn’t. To overcome, you just create Virtual Sensor (VS) that mirror the Physical Sensor (PS) and use webCoRE to operate them such as:
If PS changes to active then with VS wait 60 seconds then make active. (Coding language is very similar)
If PS changes to inactive then with VS make inactive
I’ve just implemented an entry delay on my Smarthings/codesys application. Wrote the entire sequencer in my raspberry pi codesys project complete with voice announcements for the countdown and alarming states.
The only thing I needed on Smarthings was to add a virtual contact sensor for the front door. My own application does all the logic. Works great because we now use SHM as it should be used.
Thanks for this response. This is ideally what I want to do using Dan’s @ogiewon 's excellent library and a Mega arduino board. I have that all set up but the stumbling block I have is I can’t seem to get my alarm system connected without messing it up voltage wise. I can get the Anything to work but it alters the alarm system. Maybe I shouldn’t care because we don’t use it, but it does land me a discount with my insurance and I don’t think State Farm will give me credit for my DIY smart home system. I am working on a circuit to solve this problem but I don’t have it yet working.
Thanks for this- validates exactly what I had in mind.
My presence sensors disable the alarm upon their return.
Additionally, I do not have my lock directly in SHM. Instead, I have a simulated lock there. Successful entry of a code to unlock the door disengages the alarm prior to the simulated lock being unlocked (did this in Webcore).
My advice, based on frequent ST outages, is DO NOT TRUST ST AS A ALARM.
The words security and ST should really never ever be used in the same sentence!
Your physical alarm system is your best defence for home security. Everything else is fluff. Even if you do not have a monitored system, it will be better than ST. Use ST as supplemental to your physical alarm system. Get into the habit of arming your physical alarm when you leave!
There is somebody on this forum that sells a hardware device that ties your physical alarm into your ST system; maybe @JDRoberts knows. That device represents the best of an Alarm <-> ST marriage as per my understanding. And subject to correction, it works with most, if not all, existing Alarm systems that are hardwired.
J
I think you were probably thinking about Konnected, but it just allows you to reuse hardwired sensors from a previous system with smartthings. It doesn’t add your smartthings devices to a third-party alarm system and it doesn’t have any more reliability than the base smartthings system does. It also depends on the smartthings cloud for any notifications.
Instead, if you want to use Smartthings as your primary alarm system, get the ADT/smartthings model. It corrects most of the deficiencies of the other smartthings model lines, and is a reasonable low-cost system. It has its own sensors which report locally and used a proprietary communication protocol and are more reliable than the SmartThings sensors. It also has its own cellular communications to the monitoring center. And its own battery backup system. If you follow any of the links on the smartthings website now to “security,“ they will take you to that model line.
So that model line, but only that model line, are certainly worth considering as a candidate for a low cost security system.
Update: Konnected now has a new product that does allow you to keep your existing alarm system panel and just add the SmartThings home automation integration to it.
Because this is added in parallel, your primary alarm functions are not vulnerable to the smartthings cloud platform instabilities. But of course you still have to pay for the contract for your primary system.
This is really great. It is exactly what I have been hoping to find or to make m, and since I don’t have time to make it I look forward to trying this out.
