Hi @frazhd2, I’m a newbie here too but am also looking to integrate my existing alarm system into SmartThings and have been researching this recently so thought I’d share my current thinking, a) in case it’s still helpful to you, and b) in case anyone offers further advice for either or both of us.
I am currently trying to decide between one of these two approaches to the project:
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Use the Konnected Security 2.0 system by @heythisisnate (who posted above) whose early project seems to been so popular that he turned this into a product and sells the kits, which I think is just awesome! This solution has hardware based on a NodeMCU (a single board microcontroller) each of which can handle up to 6 sensors (door, contacts, smoke alarms, etc) and you can have multiple units if you need them talking to ST over WiFi.
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Use the ST_Anything setup from @ogiewon (another ST super-user who also posted above) also running on a single board microcontroller, in my case I’m going to try the relatively new ESP32 which I believe can accept more sensors than the NodeMCU.
Both these solutions use the Arduino development environment which I’ve just started to look at today. Both have excellent documentation too and as a newbie to the world of ST and microcontrollers etc I am staggered at the level of quality and support of community build solutions like these. I’ve never heard of Arduino or plugged anything into a circuit board until last week so could be wrong on just about all of the above (please forgive newbie errors) so read the many great posts of the gurus mentioned as they seem to know alarm systems & ST inside out!