Hey smart people. So I would like to pick your brains on any ideas you guys have to indicate SHM mode status. Basically, I run a Good Night Routine that puts SHM in Armed (Home) state - so any doors or windows being opened will trigger the alarm. My lovely kid has started getting up early, letting the cat in the back door - but of course she accidentally set off the siren and freaked. Now she won’t open the door without me assuring her 100 times that the alarm is off.
I’ve been trying to think of a decent, easy to set up device that would indicate whether the alarm was on or off. I’ve thought of a color bulb somewhere, or I could set up an ActionTiles tablet - but I thought I’d see if anyone else here had any good ideas.
Step1: Get a Aeotec remote and pair it with SmartThings.
Step2: Tape it by the door.
Step3: Use the Button Controller app which you can find in the market place to trigger your Good Morning! routin.
Step4: Send you and her an SMS: "Your house is now disarmed!“
Step5: (Optional) If you have a SONOS or a VLC Thing setup, you can have your house make a voice report. I.e., Your house is now Disarmed”.
I have multiple warnings because I am crazy but the most effective for my kids is the beep warning on my Iris keypad at the door. I have a ceiling motion sensor at the door and will beep the keypad when in armed mode and motion active. Trained my kids to punch in the 4 digit codes to disarm.
I put in a 60 seconds delay when the door contact sensor is opened and phone notification as well. This gives me a second chance to disarm if the keypad beep failed.
Also have color bulbs going red for armed and white for disarmed when motion active. Lanouncer for voice as well.
Get action tiles, you can set it up to show you any info you want. Look at the bottom left, the alarm is on and the mode is Armed. I have 3 tablets around the house running action tiles 24 hours a day. I hope this helps.
People have done a number of really cool projects for this use case.
I suggest you take a look at the quick browse lists in the project report section of the community – created wiki and look on the list for “alerts and notifications.”
I personally like the Leeo nightlight. You can set the colors through IFTTT. Its regular price is $49.99, But it’s often on sale for 29.99. And there’s no mistaking what it’s set to.
Good ideas all. Thanks for the links and cool ideas.
So far, the Leeo nightlight is probably the easiest to try.
Things I didn’t mention:
We do have Amazon Echo set up for her to disarm the system with a virtual switch. ie "Alexa turn on morning"
But sometimes she forgets, or forgets if she’s done it - because she’s only 10 and it happens.
My best case would be some way she could ask “Alexa is the alarm on?” - but I haven’t gone too deep with the Alexa Assistant yet.
So I’m thinking the night light would be the quickest, easiest way to signal - “Don’t open the door until you disarm the system, kiddo.”
As for the lock signaling it - Great idea - But I already have enough difficulty telling people to count to 5 when using the front door code that disarms SHM. The lack of ability to put any delay on the alarm going off is a huge inconvenience here and the lag between the door unlocking and the cloud disarming the system is a major problem for that to ever be intuitive.
Too bad someone doesn’t just make a little nightlight that acts like a standard Philips Hue. Plug in and send it a on/off + color to display. I’d put one near each exterior door and not have to worry about stuff. Only way I can see to do that would be a z-wave switched outlet with a small LED nightlight but then the price is up to almost what the Leeo is.
Also SHM needs a delay. I know there are multiple apps that put in delays but it should just have it. People need to put in support requests asking why it doesn’t and requesting it…it doesn’t make sense and it can’t be that hard to add to the platform. Plus if its built in then it would run locally and I wouldn’t have to worry about my internet being down for a alarm to go off.
Edit: Allegedly Qubino displayed one earlier this year but I can’t find a source to actually buy it. Qubino - Qubino added a new photo. . I emailed their support people…we’ll see what they say.
I have no idea how hard it is to add or not, but people have been requesting this since the first day that smart home monitor was released almost 2 years ago.
In fact, at one point over a year ago the CEO of the company was posting to the forums and asked people to explain what an exit delay was. Which they did, but it didn’t make any difference.
So right now, you can file this one along with official support for a keypad, The ability to arm/disarm without access to the cloud account, the ability to dismiss multiple notifications at once, Cellular connection, the ability to add a secondary user who doesn’t have full admin privileges, the ability to use the app without going through the cloud account, The ability to create sensor zones, the ability to remove access for a secondary user who hasn’t logged out of their mobile app, additional notification options including SMS notifications to more than one number, ability to flash lights as a notification, ability to choose siren or strobe on devices with that capability, ability to customize the dashboard.
Those are just the basics, there are additional features that some people would like to see. But these basics are included in most purpose-built security systems in the low-end price range.
So it just seems pretty clear that whatever SmartThings is intended to be, it’s not being built to really compete as a home security system. Which you can tell by reading their official usage guidelines:
Data accuracy and consistency from SmartThings sensors, including those provided by SmartThings directly, resold by SmartThings, or supported by SmartThings, is not guaranteed. Therefore, you should not rely on that data for any use that impacts health, safety, security, property or financial interests.
Definitely feel free to keep requesting additional features. But it’s not like people haven’t done that already.
+1 on the Leeo. Kill two birds with one stone. I have it and I was thinking about trying to figure out how to get it to show weather forecast like some other SAs we have around here.
