Security alarm Entry / Exit

WebThings
#1

Hi all

At the moment ( things will change I hope) I have my first attempt of a building a home security alarm running.

At the moment when I leave the house I turn on a Rule that turns on a siren so when my PIR senses movement, the siren blows off. When I come back I turn it off to disarm it.

But, doing it that way doesn’t feel right nor is it user friendly for the rest of the household. It would be good to use a physical device so users in the house can press, a button, a fob on the keyring etc to arm/disarm the alarm so I was wondering if anyone could suggest anything and have any ideas.

I’ve tried searching the forum and web for answers for doing this, even using the plugins with no hardware but it appears there’s not a lot of information out there and unfortunately I’ve found nothing.
Hope someone can help.
Thanks

#2

That’s basically what I do too, and I agree the UI doesn’t feel super natural. I remember when I used SmartThings a few years ago there was a dedicated UI for home security, with a function to arm and disarm it.

I’m not sure there’s currently a way to enable/disable a rule with a button press. One thing you could do is use a presence sensor (or possibly use smartphones as presence sensors with an add-on) and set a rule that the alarm should go off if motion is detected while you’re away from home. You may get false positives with that though, which could be a bit irritating.

What might be cool would be if someone wanted to create a home security extension add-on which adds a more intuitive home security user interface which could perhaps toggle rules on and off behind the scenes.

#3

Hi again Ben

Thanks again for helping, I appreciate it.

Ok about the rule and siren. At least we can do something, so thats a big plus.

It’s just a pain using the phone to arm/disarm the alarm as I know the rest of the household won’t be as enthusiastic as me😂.

But you’ve just given me a thought. Maybe I set up one of my old phones and stick it on the wall near the entrance, then, using a code to access it, it opens at the rule page and they just slide the rule on and off, a minute later, the phone goes into sleep mode.

Hummm…

But, I’m waiting for a none Zigbee, Zwave keypad to arrive and I’m hoping I might be able to modify it to do the entry exit thing. We shall see, if the phone works, I might just use that

But, I fully agree, it’s a REAL shame there’s no proper UI (yet) and if anyone could come up with an Add-on that would be brilliant, just brilliant as I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there which would use it.

On another point, I looked at the wiki page to enter the devices I mentioned and to be honest scared the pants off me.

So I hope you don’t mind if I bow out of that one.

That said, my door contacts came today and they are brilliant, these are not on the list of kit that works with WT.

Here it is, and thanks again Ben for your help.

Linkind Zigbee Door Window Sensor, for Use with Linkind Home Security System and Linkind Smart Zigbee Lights, Linkind Hub Required(not Included), Compatible with Alexa Echo Plus, 2-Pack https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YDSRLZT/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_2A2RHF1DTERKR17NK692?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1