Smart Home Monitor - Feature Requests

Could you use Rule Machine to create an entrance delay? I don’t think so, but please enlighten me if I’m wrong.

When there is an intrusion event, I would like a notification to pop up in my android notification tray, with a button to dismiss the event right there so I don’t have to go into the app to dismiss it as quick as possible.

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I would like to see the status of my door lock under right now.

Thank you,

I came here to configure my lock…so, yes, locks please

An On/Off Switch for SHM.

Occasionally I’ll have to reconfigure a presence sensor in the middle of the day (my wife’s phone) and I’m at work. She did something to day that will make the House alarm go off until I set her back up from scratch. Instead of having to dive into the settings and remove everything (so the alarm doesn’t go off) Why not give us an On/Off Switch.

On - Activate SHM
Off - Deactivate SHM

You can do this with Rule Machine.

Couldn’t he just open the ST App and click Disarm, too?

Although one of the biggest benefits from Rule Machine would be the ability to go with a Virtual Presence and an OR statement: Wife’s Phone OR Wife’s Virtual Presence Device present Disarms SHM.

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No. Not if I want SHM to Arm Itself again when the next person arrives/leaves. I don’t want to monitor the coming and going of other Sensors. I just want to disable it temporarily until problems are fixed.

Bruce, how would you go about it? I have to admit I’ve tried Rule Machine in the past and for some reason rules weren’t firing. I’m on Android.

Why is it that every single time there is an “intrusion” according to SHM, I need to dismiss it about 5 times before it gets cleared?

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It is now April 12, 2016 and we are no closer to having SHM work as an alarm. It has no delays, it arms with a zone open, give me a break this is just stupid. It is time ST gives us what was promised a long time ago. They ruined tiles in the IOS app and no fix has come. So they break more than they fix. I have lots of money invested in this system and I am no nearer a alarm system than I was when I started. So to the ST staff in here why not tell us what is going on and when the fixes will be made? I am sure not the only one waiting for some truth, it is long in coming. We were promised a fix to SHM over a week ago, never happened. But unless you add the things that make SHM an alarm don’t bother wasting our time. I want ST to succeed but by not letting your customers know what is going on you are just pushing people away from your system. Please turn a light on and bring us out of the dark!

ST should delete Smart Home Monitor and move on !

I disagree.
I have a separate security system that was there way before SmartThings, and I am able to integrate it into SHM to get notifications in the event of an intrusion.
I have a separate network of Smoke and CO detectors and I am able to integrate it into SHM to get notifications in the event of a fire or CO event.
I have multiple Water detection sensors that are integrated into SHM.
So it serves a very useful purpose.

All of that im sure they can be integrated to SM without using the SHM…

I use Rule Machine app for all my security needs and IT IS MORE reliable than SHM!

And I have found SHM to be very reliable for my needs. For these critical functions I prefer SHM.

Grace period to disarm alarm is absolutely required.

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No, not true. Not sure how that rumor got started but when I first heard that I tested my system. Smoke alerts are definitely registered by SHM regardless of the security component’s armed/disarmed state.

So just what nobody wants - an SHM feature request! But this one I think is pretty important and required.

There needs to be a way to disarm SHM within a certain time period after an alarm whereby a) sirens aren’t going off, lights aren’t flashing, etc, and b) Scout (or whoever) won’t call if its disarmed.

User story is as follows… As a home owner / smartthings setter-upper, I want to be able to give my parents a way to enter the house and disarm SHM without triggering alerts or necessitating a call from Scout. Either: I give them a code for the z-wave deadbolt, and their code triggers the disarming of SHM. (This seems totally doable today, but there’s an issue of synchronicity where they can open the door before the state changes.)

OR

I want someone to be able to open the door, and do the secret thing which triggers turning off the alarm. Maybe this is pressing a hidden button somewhere or something like that. When they initially open a door, nothing happens. If they haven’t disarmed the system in 30 seconds my siren starts beeping (not at max volume.) After 60 seconds if the system isn’t disarmed, it is registered as an intrusion.

This would allow me to use SHM as I would a normal alarm system, and would not require me giving out logins and installing an on the phone of everyone who would be coming over when I’m not there. This would also be a useful grace period for times when perhaps I’m without my phone and need to enter without being able to disarm SHM. I don’t want to have to use my phone to arm / disarm SHM (or do anything else, truth be told.)

I think this is a gap which prevents long term adoption of SHM + Scout. From a customer’s perspective.

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Entrance delays and other alarm / notification paradigms that are typical in most alarm systems are a common feature request. I forget whether I posted my wishlist on this publicly…

NB: The pieces involved are more likely to function optimally if they are local, of course, eliminating internet or cloud load latency.

  1. Mobile (phone GPS) Presence is based on a radius, so presumably an optimal radius (i.e., something you enter perhaps 1 or 2 minutes ahead of opening any “armed” door), then it will, if per spec, disarm in time. Unfortunately, mobile presence will likely always require the Cloud.

  2. The simplest comprehensive solution is for SHM to have an across the board “user definable Alarm Delay period”, during which an intrusion can be Alarm completely cancelled upon selected valid conditions: Presence, IRIS keypad, Door Lock PIN Pad, App button, secret sequence of light switches turned on, etc…

  3. Alarm Delays would even be valid for Smoke and Water Alerts. i.e,. SHM should give a pre-alert (i.e., Smoke Detected, please press perform your cancel options if false; and also it would double-check for smoke for perhaps 1 minute…).

Not much can be done about #1. Fast and accurate Presence is an independent issue that ST needs to work on regardless of SHM.

But I think a basic Alarm Delay / Alarm Deferral is easy to implement, and can be made as simple or as complex as desired… Complex, for example, would be a series of escalating Alert Actions triggered by the initial Event:

  • Initial event notification for information purposes so the customer is gently reminded to perform the next steps (I think some traditional Alarm Systems blink a light on their keypads or even beep softly at this phase, even if that could be a warning to burglars, that’s not so bad … get rid of them quickly).

  • Second stage alert notification is the last chance to cancel the Alarm within 30 seconds or whatever is reasonable.

  • Third stage is pretty much already in place: Local alarms go off, but the monitoring company telephone calls or triggers some sort of high priority message to ask if this is a false alarm or not and does not contact emergency responders for a few more minutes.

  • Fourth stage could still be offered; even after police or fire is contacted, there should be a procedure to securely issue the all clear to minimize impact of a false alarm. It may or may not be too late to abort the emergency responder from investigating, but knowing the Alarm was securely cancelled can impact how they handle the scene (i.e., guns and fire-hoses drawn or… not).

###TL;DR
Alarm delay/deferral timeouts in escalating stages is a standard, basic, (and usually fully customizable) feature of every traditional alarm system. It is unfortunate that SHM was launched without these options, but SHM is currently going through a major overhaul to add at least some improvement towards this basic feature.

I trust that this is a rather high priority because SHM is fundamental to several important potential ongoing (i.e., subscription) revenue streams.

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Exactly! Also, the sky has not fallen yet, though based on the mood on these forums I expected to get home and find my hub causing my (very dumb) toaster to shoot toast across the room.

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