Uk sirens/alarms

hi,

anyone using indoor siren/alarm working with st in the uk? cheap and reliable. tried lannouncer, great in theory but in practise after a couple of days it disconnects from the net.
so, looking for a ziggbee siren for the uk market

Curry’s have these sirens

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/smart-tech/smart-tech/smart-home/smart-home-monitoring-and-power/d-link-mydlink-dch-z510-smart-home-siren-10146868-pdt.html#srcid=11026

I was going to get the D-Link but opted for the Aoen Labs one instead. I’m a little disappointed tbh… would have liked a more mild beep once it’s triggered then I a severe alarm after a certain time. It can be annoying when it goes off when I’ve moved back into Away mode randomly or not at all when arriving. Was looking at the GoControl Siren but it’s only available from USA and I’ve not been able to find out if it even works in the UK? Anyone else got experience of an alarm set up with SmartThings in the UK?

I use a DLNA compatible speaker doing the voice notification, doorbell and alarm. It works but it won’t be perfectly like a normal siren alarm since it’s just a speaker. But I’m happy about the overall performance.

Could you expand on this DLNA speaker set up please? What your setup is, how you integrated it, etc. For example, how would the alarm be triggered on the speaker if you were away, and there was motion detection?

It also got me thinking if I could somehow utilise the Amazon Echo as an alarm.

TIA

This is the DTH I use:

Setup wise it’s quite simple, all you need is a DLNA compatible speaker and the DTH and then you can use it in your SmartThings.

To allow the alarm be triggered, you can just use SHM where you can ask it to send push notification with triggering siren alarm. All you need to do is associate that siren alarm to the DLNA speaker from there.

Alternatively, you can use webcore or any other smartApp to do either voice notification (require TTS) or play music/sound effect.

For Amazon Echo, I don’t think it support DLNA though.

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I got the Neo Coolcam siren. £20 off ebay. Works a charm and you can set the volume of the pre siren bleeps in the settings independently of the main Siren. Fairly loud siren too if you mount it in the hall/stairway.

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Just wondering if I could encourage any of you to share any ideas of new SmartThings security products as I am working on a University project. Thanks in advance :smile:

Hi @R_mutt which Device Hander did you use for the UK Neo Coolcam siren please?

@alcopop2006
The overwhelming majority of UK security systems are extremely dumb. The manufacturers have a complete aversion to allowing linking to smart home systems - even if this was to be read-only access. This even applies to brands that in the US might offer some smart capabilities. To show how dump they are they are all still crippled with ye olde numeric keypad as the user interface.

Some now offer smart phone apps but only to talk to their proprietary system.

Some now offer CCTV and/or smoke alarms as add-ons but only their own proprietary ones.

Verisure - https://www.verisure.co.uk might claim to be a smart alarm system in the UK but it is again afflicted with a numeric keypad and again will not talk to other smart home systems.

Ring have a smart alarm system which will link (somewhat) to other smart home products being that it is now owned by Amazon but even this is also afflicted with a numeric keypad and is not available in the UK.

Smartthings and ADT have partnered to produce a system that does count as a smart system, does not have a numeric keypad - it uses a touchscreen LCD panel but has very, very limited integration. It also is not available in the UK with it seems no likelihood of this happening.

I suspect the insurance companies are also part of the problem in that they likely will not certify smart alarm systems in this country. The monitoring companies also are likely part of the problem as they do not want even the smallest possibility of alarms being triggered by other products linked to an alarm system.

(It is my opinion that third-party CCTV camera and smoke alarms are likely to be vastly superior to the old fashioned crud provided by traditional security firms.)

This overwhelmingly technophobic attitude means new concepts like using WiFi signals to monitor the movement of people inside a house as a form of ‘RADAR’ is beyond their feeble minds.

Note: One big problem with most of the smarter or more accurately less dumb systems is the lack of wired outdoor siren support. I don’t want to periodically have to get a ladder to change batteries, and the whole point of a siren is to attract attention so having it muffled indoors does not help a lot.