SmartThings for security--how to add cellular backup?

I have a SmartThings v2 Hub and a number of sensors, including many Multi Sensors as door and window open/close sensors. I’d like to link these to a more robust security solution, my primary concern is getting alerts if my home internet goes down.

Are there any options out there to either remove my ST sensors from my SmartThings hub and link them with another hub that has cellular backup (Scout, Abode, Blink Seecurity, etc.) or directly link my SmartThings hub (with the sensors) to another system that does have cellular backup?

I’ve looked into getting a router that has cellular fall back and putting it on a UPS, but that seems overly complex.

I like SmartThings and want to stick with it, but would prefer to have some sort of cellular backup.

I don’t necessarily need professional monitoring, but I am not completely opposed to it. I’m also open to paying a monthly fee for the cellular backup.

Just trying to figure out what my options are.

2 Likes

No cellular backup native to SmartThings. A lot of folk do run a modem with cellular backup.

Take a look at mi-fi units. My Huwawei can be set up to have a primary wireless link to my internet router, but if that goes off it will seamlessly switch to cellular, and back again when the router comes back up. It can be mains powered, but it also has a battery which seems to last around 8 hours. The bandwidth is a bit limited, so you don’t want to run Netflix over it! But orherwise a nice little unit.

1 Like

Thanks for insight, been eyeing various Huwawei models for some time. Please consider providing more details on an approach such as make & models of MiFi, Router, Battery backup power strip (?).

This is not something I do myself. I was just providing some ideas as to how to maintain a connection when your main internet connection goes down…

I set up a TP-Link Internal Universal Power Supply Load Balance Broadband Router (TL-R470T+) with Mifi. It works OK when the Internet is down, however, the cellular use is higher that I think it should be. I am fiddling with the TP-Link to adjust its distribution, but I can’t seem to adjust it AND the TP-Link firmware and software is rather old, (2015) is anyone using this configuration successfully?

I am planning to do the same thing…
I am looking at Netgear LB 2120.
Just debating over monthly fees for data.

Hi

Please can you tell me the configuration that your LB2120 device has for active the automatic failover detection to give the Smartthing Hub redundancy. What is the IP address that you add for the active failover in the LTE MODEM LB2120?
When wireline broadband in active again, the LTE MODEM changes automatically from 4G LTE to wiredline?

Thanks for your help

I have the same problem here. Does anyone has figured it out?

I haven’t purchased anything but I really wanted battery backup and cellular backup so I can use SmartThings as a security system.

Consumer routers usually don’t have features for failover internet amongst other features you can only find in a high-end professional router BUT there is 3rd party firmware like DD-WRT and OpenWRT that you can put on consumer routers to give it all those advance features.

GL.iNet GL-MT300A Mini Travel Router, OpenWrt Pre-installed

This mini router has OpenWRT pre-installed and it has a USB port. OpenWRT has a feature where you can setup a primary internet connection and then failover to a second internet connection. You can install a USB stick modem with a sim card to give it a backup cellular internet. There are a bunch of USB modems on Amazon, just make sure you get the right one!

There is also Freedompop which has a free offering, no contracts or monthly fees, which gives you 500Mb of data for free. It should be enough to at least give you an alert that your normal internet is down. I don’t have anything yet so I’m not sure how much bandwidth SmartThings uses. You can buy the Freedompop sim cards for $7 on Amazon. I plan on tethering it to my phone to see how much bandwidth it uses.

For power backup, most UPS are designed for only a temporary backup, like a few minutes, until the backup generator kicks on and takes over. There are some UPS that are designed to provide power for longer durations, like 8 hours. I was considering this one:

APC Back-UPS Connect BGE90M,120V, Network Backup with USB Charging ports

I will have my internet router/modem, the mini router and the SmartThings Hub plugged in.

Hope this helps. I can make a better how-to once I purchase everything and get it setup.

1 Like

I found another post that says SmartThings used about 100Mb so I guess Freedompop would be good for up to 5 days of outage per month.

Also, SmartThings Hub has 4 AA batteries and I found this post saying that it can last 10 hours so you don’t have to add the hub to the UPS. That would give you more time for your internet router/modem and the mini router. It would also give you a way to know there is a power outage since the mobile app would know the hub is on battery power.

Here is what I did, works great.

The Smartthings hub consumes data depending what are you doing, for example, mine will consume more data because I have energy meter and webcore reads it every 3 minutes to make sure I don’t have a power loss in my home, I have smart tiles, it synchronizes, I still have alarm.com and smartthings refreshes the status every 10 minutes plus more stuff. So if you only have lights and motions probably will be less data than a bunch of stuff refreshing and syncing like me.

there is a way to do this. you can purchase an SMTP to SMS Cellular gateway and have smart things send an email to your “internal” SMTP gateway that will send you an SMS. here is one such product https://www.smseagle.eu/

My set up is I have a UPS backup connected to my secuirity cameras and SmartThings Hub. I have the cameras and SmartThings hub connected to switch which is connected to the Ethernet port. In addition I have a cellular modem connected to the switch so in the event the internet goes down, the cameras and hub draw data from the cellular modem. Def beats having to switch to a ring alarm system.

Hi…I got a SIM card from FreedomPop and LB2120 is not connecting to mobile network. Did you end up going down this path? Any suggestions on trouble shooting? I know the SIM is activated.

Hi…I got a SIM card from FreedomPop and LB2120 is not connecting to mobile network. Did you end up going down this path? Any suggestions on trouble shooting? I know the SIM is activated.