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The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
Using Homey as security alarm system
Michael
Member
I saw some similar posts mentioning that people are looking for ways to protect their home. I was wondering if Homey could have such functionality in the future. I think you should be able to create a security like system with a lot of rules, but I think it should be way more convenient if Homey has some basic functionality.
States like:
. I understand Homey already has a lot of this functionality, but it would be really nice if you could set this up in a few clicks.
States like:
- Armed
- Home
- Off
- If armed trigger an alarm when any of the following sensors are trapped
- Trigger only when a minimum of one door sensor and one motion sensor is trapped
- When opening the front door let Homey say: "Please disarm the alarm". If not done within 10 seconds sound an alarm
- When you have a disarm button on your iPhone/iPad/Wall tablet show a keypad to enter a 4 digit code to disarm
- Send immediate alarm when sensor sabotage sensors are trapped
- Start recording all cameras when alarm
- Move PTZ cameras to the position of the sensor that triggered the alarm
- Have several categories for alarm: Motion alarm, door/window open, fire alarm, smoke alarm, CO2 alarm, water flooding, etc.
- Perform a check before arming the alarm and let Homey say which zone are not ready. Let you override if needed.
. I understand Homey already has a lot of this functionality, but it would be really nice if you could set this up in a few clicks.
Comments
My A+ has a Home and Away mode, which is nice but somewhat limited.
And although it is limited, if Homey won't have some type of Home/Away mode, i'll really miss it.
I had the same idea
Homey has geofencing and knows who are (coming) home and if nobody's home, Homey could arm the alarm (flows/feature/switch).
For now it's not possible to (dis)arm security sensors, but there a workaround for that (where i'm not so happy with);
https://github.com/athombv/homey/issues/26
I would love a (dis)arm feature for all security (motion, smoke, door/window, water) sensors.
Why? Why should i have 2/3/4 systems in my home(y) to control/trigger lights, windows, motion, lights?
At the moment Athom has some problems with Hue's to control the right lights and keep Homey synced with the Hue bridge because of design choice of Philips(no live API or push option from the bridge). So if the Bridge is out, it makes Athom and my live/wallet a lot of time/money
Would love to kick the Hue bridge out of my home, alarm systems are in most cases not user friendly and uses large amounts of power(the Hue bridge also).
And what could the added value of homey be if i have a dedicated smart alarm system? Friends of our have a dedicated alarm system which call to there cellphone. Works great, but everytime the enter of leave there home the need to enter a security code on a console.
There is in my opinion a difference between able to do it and being suited for the job
Most "cheap" dedicated alarm systems work with wireless sensors and for me that's not a reliable system. But its the house owner its choice.
Most Domotica controller advertise with a alarm feature, Homey misses it out of the box.
"if sensor X is armed and tripped, then do Y."
I would not call it an alarm but a notication system.
An alarm has tamper protection, backup battery, notice of fail/alarm on Phone / SMS / Push Message and maybee even a connection to police/alarm central
You can learn a cow to jump a fence but it will never become a horse......
There will be no Insurance company that will ever mark a domotica system as an alarm station.
Be warned if you let you're Insurance company know you have a "alarm" and get a discount for that that if youre house gets broken in your Insurance is not valid. Worst case is you are not insured
If a flow can be used to set a global variable (bArmed) and that variable can be evaluated in other flows wouldn't that work out as desired?
i.e.: if a sensor is tripped and bArmed=true then action
The flow to set (toggle true/false) the variable can perhaps be triggered by a codepanel, a rfid tag reader or whatever.
(Btw, can a flow trigger another flow?)
Also, it is also something you might use for other purposes. For instance, I have a motion sensor in the hallway. I only arm it when the light level (measured in lux) is below a certain value. You could solve this with a flow. But, I also use this in other ways. For instance, I disarm this feature when I'm sleeping because sometimes movement of my two cats triggers it and the light is next to my bedroom and might wake me up..
And I could come up with another 10 viable use cases. It's a feature that's commonly accepted in Z-Wave country. And as explained above, it would save the hassle of creating a *lot* of flows...
Home
Sleep
Away short
Away long en make the flow switch everything you like/possible.
For example HomeWizard uses this principle in combination with a double kaku switch. Works great. You can also use geofence etc. Just an idea to start with.
Because it's possible to do it with homey or another controller at the market.
Domotica makes live easier and high-end alarm system also don't protect you. It's the police or security company which can do something.
When I'm away and my backdoor triggers and send an email/push message, then I can call the police or when I go home I know I can expect something is going on.
Are you living in "The Netherlands" Lol, police.... Lol lol and lol.....
But not to go into discussion about all.
I was just trying to warn people because there will be some who are gona fill it there form for Insurance : I have alarm system.
When you brake in and they check it and see a homey you put misleading info and the contract is invalid.
You will not get a piece of the money / value that was stolen back.
It was just a warning for peeps and a suggestion for a better naming like intrusion detection and not alarm system.
No seriously, It will not protect against burglars, but youbwill be notified. This is what I have in mind for my system as well. Police and such nowadays don't not respond very quickly. Better is to have a system in place which you can monitor yourself and if needed call the police yourself once you'v verified via an ip cam..
then when there is a burglar in the house play xyz random over all the speakers connected, livingroom, bedroom, kitchen, all at once, drive them crazy ;-)
And no, it doesn't give you 'protection' as such, but it does warn you.
Make this work with homey
Way cheaper, and... There's an app for that
+1
Anybody interested in some security sensors?
i use an AD2000 code/tag reader (€20,-) and a Fibaro binair sensor (€40,-) to connect it to my z-wave network.
So it can set my sensors (door/window sensors, pir sensor) on and off. (home/away)
It takes video and pictures and saves them in the cloud en sends it to my phone.
Also flashes my hue lights orange, no siren yet.
I am a professional security technician but this is just a simple notifier and not 100% secure but it works against the casual (dumb) thief.
But the best way to protect your house are good door locks and don't forget to lock them
ps if you want a good and secure alarm system go wired! check out systems like Aritech, Galaxy
Using multi sensors to monitor instead of sensor x for heating, Y for intercom, and z for alarm