Like many of you, I have been using Smart Alarm because of it’s features (most notably entry/exit delays). When I previously used Smart Home Monitor, I was getting lots of false alarms. This translated into annoyances, especially for my wife!
I’ve recently noticed in the Smart Alarm thread that @geko is no longer supporting his app and is recommending SHM.
So, my question is if those using SHM currently find it to be stable and without false alarms.
I would say it’s been very stable since the last issue. About six weeks I think?
SHM works fine - however if you use routines to arm/disarm - it often fails to arm/disarm due to routines timing out or failing.
I do use routines currently. Do you just manually arm and disarm your SHM?
No, I let routines do it and send screen shots to support when it fails. I’ve gotten used to using the app to check status before entering or after I leave. However, I just built some pistons in CoRE to tell me if it isn’t armed when it should be or is disarmed when it shouldn’t be. So far that is working well.
I use routines only for mine. Always worked except twice during the SHM issues. I don’t use sirens so it’s not a problem when it false alarms for me. I just check the cameras and dismiss when clear.
It’s funny you say this because I have noticed the same instability in my routines since about 3-4 days ago. I even had two separate false alarms from Smart Alarm which has NEVER happened before! That’s why I was even looking at SHM again.
I use sirens - so it goes off for false alarms. However I also use Simple Device Viewer which tells me if a device hasn’t checked in after a certain amount of time. Unfortunately my siren doesn’t play nice with SDV. But I have a false alarms often to still know the siren is connected. LOL
That’s what I was afraid of! LOL Unfortunately if the issue is due to routines rather than Smart Alarm or SHM, then it doesn’t really matter which one I use.
You could set SHM to arm/disarm using CoRE instead of routines. That’s my next move if routines keep acting up.
We use it with Scout and sirens as well. Routines have not been a problem as I don’t overload them to avoid timeouts. our SHM is also controlled by the Iris Keypads and door lock apps to disable SHM when correct codes entered.
On a scale from one to five, how would you rate SHM reliability, today (with 1 not reliable at all and 5 very reliable)
0 voters
I only have the 4 stock routines because though I want a smart home, I dont want it to be complicated! It sounds like your setup is very similar to mine.
If I understand you correctly, you are not getting SHM false alarms using a good morning, good night, goodbye, and i’m back routine?
That’s my setup. SHM with sirens setup based on the stock routines. No false alarms for me since the last meltdown a few months back
Without exit and entry delay feature, I can’t find it of any use for security, regardless of “stability”. So… Stable is important, but there is, IMHO, such a thing as a “critical feature”.
SHM itself has been very reliable. Mobile presence, while improved, still needs some work. I get one or two false alarms a month from my phone not registering as present.
Since they implemented the various fixes after the meltdown this spring, my SHM has been pretty reliable as far as false alarms go.
100% agree with Terry there. ST should be embarrassed that, nearly a year since it was introduced, their home security system doesn’t have a core feature of, like, every other home security system ever.
I had an issue about a week ago that really made me angry. At 12:23 AM, my siren started to go off. Nobody was moving around, everyone was in bed. I also have a Leeo, which heard the siren and mistook that for the fire alarm. So the phone is ringing, the siren is wailing, and of course it NEVER turns off the first time you try it, then you’ve got the whole family waking up in various stages of agitation about wtf is going on. Ultimately, I suppose the real issue in this case was smartthings in general, and not shm. All of my smartthings brand devices became locked in a state, or changed states and got locked that way. One of my doors got marked as open and would not close. Funny thing is that all my devices from any other brand were still functioning.
SHM is extremely… umm… consistent for me. It’s probably fine, but the Android presence system, which was pretty decent about 9 months ago, is now sometimes laggy and sometimes just wrong, so that SHM doesn’t have anything to go on. I have “Home” firing on return of the presence sensor to a very large area, and both lighting up the place and changing the alarm mode. But the presence system isn’t reliable enough for use as an SHM input.
I have not caught SHM itself doing bad, just the system as a
I have come to the conclusion that it’s Android presence that’s causing my false alarms as mentioned. It was working so well for at least 4 months and now it clearly isn’t.
I’m getting incredibly sick of the Smart things bugs and nuances. Argh!