Make my house alarm smart

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skybounder

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The setup - have an alarm with a receiver so can activate, deactivate with a fob. Also have a led mounted outside the house so I can see when the system is armed.

I have a Pi installed where have a fair number of items operating such as garage door openers, gate openers and a few light circuits and have connected a fob to the Pi to be able to activate and deactivate.

Where I am stuck is to be able to tell when the alarm is armed.

My thought was to be able to monitor the line that powers the outside led and when there is power on the line = alarm activated. So how do I build such a circuit to monitor that line and pass back a high or low to the gpio? Or any other suggestions?
 
What alarm system do you have, some alarms have wifi modules that control the system and that are not too expensive.

Taking a long shot here, but if your panel has a remote arming input option, you could use that with a 12v self inching smart switch (under R200). So besides checking the armed status, will also allow to arm/disarm remotely
 
Can already arm/disarm. Hooked relay up to the fob and controlled by the pi.

Unfortunately alarm is older generation pre wifi, so that is not an option.
 
No need for wifi. Simply install a GSM module on your alarm together with a remote application such as OLARM and you can activate and deactivate your alarm from anywhere in the world via your smartphone. Not only that but if the alarm is deactivated, you can even follow as people walk past zones as the triggering of sensors are all logged.

Installing a GSM module is usually around R500 as a once off cost (if you have an armed response contract you will get a refund if you cancel the service) and R50 per month to cover the data costs. My module has both a MTN and VODACOM sim installed as a redundancy measure.
 
Had the alarm company here and they don't have any solutions for my generation of alarm, hence why went the route of DIY. Cost to update my panel R10k plus the R50/month. Cost so far to add to my Pi and achieve same - R300 (fob and 2 chanel relay) and no extra monthly cost.
 
What alarm is it?

I was able to program the status to one of the PCM’s on my Spectra.
 
So there might be a better way but what i did was:

Add a sonoff sv to the zone which is set to key arm (the same zone as your existing receiver) - this allows you to arm and disarm.

Add an opto-isolator to the led output connect to the SV's GPIO pins to see the stat of the alarm, sadly i havent really gone to the effort of making it recognise when the alarm is going off, but i can see when it is armed or disarmed, and when the alarm goes off it basically flips between armed/disarmed repeatedly because the LED would be flashing
 
Thanks Steamy. That is what I am looking for. Can you point me in the correct direction as to which opto-isolator (specs) you made use of. Will still hook it to the Pi GPIO which is 3V.
 
skybound said:
Thanks Steamy. That is what I am looking for. Can you point me in the correct direction as to which opto-isolator (specs) you made use of. Will still hook it to the Pi GPIO which is 3V.
Click to expand...

I have a post somewhere here on myBB, i will try find it
 
omni-presence said:
Hi, just a hit an run comment but this is a local product. I happen to know someone who's involved with the development of it. https://www.olarm.co/products . I have not tried it myself but it looks good.
Click to expand...
Am using this at the moment - UI is great but sometimes the app doesn't communicate with the Alarm board - i have the GSM one not the Wifi one though

Apparently they are working on APIs / plugins for HomeAssistant though
 
We bought TPlink cameras the tapo wifi ones with a memory card. Works better, 2 way chatting and has alarms. What can i say....works really well
 
Corelli said:
We bought TPlink cameras the tapo wifi ones with a memory card. Works better, 2 way chatting and has alarms. What can i say....works really well
Click to expand...

Are you still happy with the cameras? I see alot of complaints about wifi cameras, people suggest going the hard wired route rather!
 
skybounder said:
The setup - have an alarm with a receiver so can activate, deactivate with a fob. Also have a led mounted outside the house so I can see when the system is armed.

I have a Pi installed where have a fair number of items operating such as garage door openers, gate openers and a few light circuits and have connected a fob to the Pi to be able to activate and deactivate.

Where I am stuck is to be able to tell when the alarm is armed.

My thought was to be able to monitor the line that powers the outside led and when there is power on the line = alarm activated. So how do I build such a circuit to monitor that line and pass back a high or low to the gpio? Or any other suggestions?
Click to expand...
I have a 25-year old Pi alarm system and a Robotguard system for security beams. They are both as smart as a tomato-box plank

Using a flashed Sonoff SV, I connected various GPIO inputs on the SV to these systems. Now I can do the following via Home Assistant:

Home alarm: Arm and disarm, see armed status, see Siren status and how many times the siren has triggered since the alarm was activated. I am also monitoring the battery level.

For the Roboguard, I can see the armed status, Siren status and how many times the siren has triggered since a beam was activated. I still need to buy an extra key fob to allow for remote arming and disarming.

This has been working for a while already. When the siren is triggered, Home Assistant send notifications to the family's phones via Telegram.

I suggest that you start reading up on Home Assistant if you want to do something similar with your alarm. It will help if you have a manual of your alarm, showing the available inputs, outputs and trigger points.
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Our current alarm system also like a pre-wifi classic keypad IDS alarm system. Would be great to upgrade it to something, that can be hooked up to smart phones and wifi.
 
Working on getting Home Assistant and a Security software developer company's Gateway to talk to each other. Then about 70% of SA security companies can get our smart home alarm alerts on their stacks. Ready for a call out.
 
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