Home Security Systems?

[Brian_Bunge]

Hello everyone! I haven’t done much with my SharpTools/SmartThings dashboards in a while. I’ve been focusing a little more on my physical health since the first of the year and am just now wanting to get back into working on this.

I’ve been wanting to look at home security systems for a while but they all seem confusing to me. Are there any out there that work well with SmartThings and Echo? We are in a 2100sq ft loft with only 1 door and 2 floor level windows. It’s just my wife, my 23 yo daughter, and myself along with 3 cats living here. I’m thinking what I’d need are 3 door/window sensors, a motion detector, and maybe smoke/fire detection along with a keypad unless the dashboard can work for that.

I currently have an 8” and 10” fire tablet along with an old iPad mini 2 that I plan to use for SharpTools dashboards.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Chris_C]

@Brian_Bunge

I’m thinking what I’d need are 3 door/window sensors, a motion detector, and maybe smoke/fire detection along with a keypad unless the dashboard can work for that.

Sounds like you might be able to get away with the built-in SmartThings Home Monitor = STHM.

I’ve also heard good things about RBoy’s Intruder Alerts app and their keypad device handlers.

[James]

@Brian_Bunge Good to hear that you are doing better.

I use SmartThings SHM (see here for the difference between SHM and STHM and tips to work with STHM) as my home security system and the dashboards to arm/disarm the security. You may also be interested to add a siren, ex Aeotec siren, and create automation rules to trigger the siren when door/window is opened while the SHM/STHM is not disarmed. I have rules to trigger siren, notification and echo to speck specific texts when things happen in certain scenario, and I feel the siren does better job alerting, and echo helps to give some context about the situation.
You may also be interested to check out how to use PIN to secure the dashboard or specific tile, ex: SHM/STHM tile. So others cannot change the alarm status without PIN.

How does PIN security work?

Can you clarify what you mean by it doesn’t protect any use of the tile and how you are enabling the PIN attribute? For PIN protection to work, first make sure you’ve edited the Dashboard Settings and set a PIN: Open your Desired Dashboard Tap the ... menu in the bottom-right corner and tap Configuration Ensure that the pin has been set under Security > Set Dashboard PIN Note: When setting a PIN, you will be prompted for the PIN twice to confirm the PIN [image] At this point, you would hav…

[Ryan_Mclellan]

I’m using a fire 7 tablet as my main dashboard for now anyway. I’m using the Smarrthings SHM with virtual switches. These switches both run an Alexa routine and set the SMH. I have one virtual switch that is code protected and this is the main “security” button on the dashboard. The starts a 30sec delay and Alexa announces “Alarm will arm in 30 seconds” after the 30sec another virtual switch turns on that is tied the the SHM arm and Alexa announces “Security system is now armed”. If the 30 sec timer Vswitch is pressed it turns off all the switches and resets the SHM to home. The Alexa routine is not 100% accurate as it sometimes misses an announcement. I was looking for an actual siren that played some security sounds/ beeps. Some I found seemed like cheap toy sounds. Any recommendations??? Also looking for another way to see visually if the arm it turned on. Sometimes we don’t look at the tablet if we wake up in the night to let the dog out and sometimes trigger the SHM. I was thinking of using a smart LED strip around the frame of the table that would turn red if the SHM was armed, but did not want to spend a tone of money for about a foot or less of LED light strip. Also looking for suggestions on this too…