I have been using Sharptools, Fully, Konnected and Smartthings to enhance my old alarm system and replace the old alarm keypads with fire tablets. While most of the new upgrade works well, I’m constantly being challenged by friends and family about how to simplify the UX of the whole solution. One idea I’m currently working on, is being able to prompt the PIN keypad automatically on Sharptools when someone enters the house and needs to deactivate the alarm.
Today I have a PIN protected Arm/Disarm button on my dashboard which activates/deactivates the alarm. However, since it takes a minute to walk up to the wall mounted tablet, find the disarm button, click it, enter the PIN (while dealing with the usual lag the fire tablet has) and wait for the command to be processed, the whole disarm process often cannot be completed within the time limit and the alarm ends up being triggered. A way to shorten and simplify the process would be to trigger the tablet to show the PIN keypad directly when the alarm is armed and someone enters the house.
I have the sensors or virtual switches I would need to trigger a rule (If Alarm is active and Main door or Garage doors are opened…), but I’m missing from the flow part the possibility to simulate a press on that Arm/Disarm button (or worst case to redirect to another dashboard), so that the PIN keypad can be shown.
Any thoughts or ideas about how could I create such a setup? Thanks in advance.
What command is being sent to disarm things? Is it a device command (eg. to the Konnected device) or something else like a mode change or a virtual switch which is controlling SmartThings Home Monitor (STHM)?
Yes, it’s a device command to Konnected (momentary switch) that allows me to change the state - armed->disarmed or disarmed->armed.
I also created virtual switches to interface with Alexa (to arm the alarm via voice or notify upon entry that the alarm is active and should be deactivated).
I tried to use the STHM, but was having issues keeping the mode in sync between ST and the old DSC alarm (I’m using Konnected with an Interface module), so I opted for a straightforward Arm/Disarm button with a status (armed/disarmed) simulated contact switch.
I have an idea for how it could be accomplished with our up and coming “Custom Tiles” feature which is currently in beta. I’m pretty swamped at the moment, but I’d be happy to take a stab at something for you next week?
My thought is you could have a custom tile which always displays the PIN entry. Then you could either set this as your default dashboard that Fully Kiosk reverts to or setup a rule to load that dashboard based on certain conditions.
Thanks for the input Josh (and sorry about my late reply - Work pulled me away from my home projects).
I’m still facing the issue I described previously with one of the tablets I set up at home: a 7" fire tablet. The main issue being the overlay effect of the dashboard PIN function, which takes a long time to load (be rendered) and slows down the pin entry process (PIN digits entered take a while to be displayed). I understand that the 7" fire tablet is less than ideal for home automation & dashboard purposes, but I’m trying my best to sort out this issue without buying a new tablet.
I’ve modified the android and Fully settings to minimize use of HW resources (limit services/apps running in parallel, moved Fully to memory card, etc) as well as stripped off most UI complexity from the dashboard I need to use on this tablet (background images, shadows, transparency, etc).
Do you have any additional recommendations for me to either disable the overlay animation of the dashboard PIN or optimize HW performance? (btw - I’ve already removed Google Services and I’m using the Fire version of Fully)
Otherwise, do you believe the use of a custom tile would help bypass the overlay effect? If so, are there any html samples you can recommend?
Other community members have reported performance improvements by performing a factory reset of their Fire tablet – to make sure there aren’t any remaining effects of side-loading services, etc – and then letting the device update to the latest Fire OS version.
If you had your default dashboard set to one that shows the custom PIN tile already rendered when you walked into the door (as noted above), I think that would be the most performant solution.
Here’s an example PIN Entry custom tile:
You’ll need to create a Personal Access Token in SmartThings with at least the Device Execution scope, then when you configure the tile you’ll need to enter the Device ID and the relevant capability+command. (eg. capability=switch, command=on)
