Paradox Alarm to Home Assistant interface through Pi Zero W (without IP150 module)

Hi Guys

I have a new question. Ok so here is the background. I have HASS running on a Pi4, and PAI running on a Pi Zero. After setting up the dashboard in HomeAssistant I can now see, all my zones, and arm my alarm system in Night, Home and Away modes.
Untitled.jpg

But, I need one more mode. Using NodeRED I should be able to activate instant alarm (Maybe a panic) in the form of forcing my alarm to yell, if one of my Sonoff door sensors (connected to HA but not my Paradox MG5050) is triggered. I should also be in a possition to use 3rd party (Like Sonoff) PIRs to activate (or triger) my alarm.

Question is, how to I instant arm the system, or panic it through PAI?

Thanks guys
 
Hi @casperjjordaan

I have not been able to find a "proper" solution either. It would have been very helpful if you could just trigger an alarm zone directly via PAI.

What I ended up doing based on a thread I read, was to use one of the PGMs and hard wiring this to zone on the alarm board which you can then configure as a Panic zone. You can trigger the PGM via PAI / HA and then triggers the Zone. I used PGM 5 as it has a relay so this was an easy way to get it working. Alternatively, you could probably write some code to use on the PI zero pins and hook this up to a zone and subscribe to a MQTT topic you create instead of the PGM just ensuring you get your voltages right. The PGM option seemed simpler in my case.

Yes, this feels like a workaround and there might be a better solution, but not aware of any at this time.

Regards
 
I have a panic zone that when I activate on ha it sends a signal through to my armed response. It probably is accessible in node red. I'll need to do some digging...
 
I can see a Panic Radio, yes it does send a "Panic Signal" to the armed response, but it does not sound the siren speaker.

I want to sound the siren when I use 3rd part PIRs and Door sensors through NodeRED.
 
calvin- said:
So - I decided to take a stab at this, and this is what I ended up with:

View attachment 1031932

Basically, what you're looking at is an ESP01s, plugged into a a logic level converter board (so, something like https://www.communica.co.za/products/hkd-esp8266-esp-01-adapt-3-3v-5v) powered by a 4-23v to 5v buck converter (So, something like https://www.banggood.com/3pcs-DC-DC...-Buck-Converter-Replace-LM2596-p-1561049.html).

The buck converter takes the 13 odd volts from the serial connection down to 5 volts. The logic level converter takes the 5v stuff down to the 3v that the ESP01 runs on.

The ESP01 is flashed with the stock standard Arduino IDE "WiFiTelnetToSerial" sketch (naturally with my SSID & PW). Only change is to drop the serial rate down to 9600, so:

#define BAUD_SERIAL 115200

becomes

#define BAUD_SERIAL 9600

As I add my IOT devices into my DHCP server so they get fixed IP addresses, I know exactly which IP address to put into the PAI configuration:

CONNECTION_TYPE = 'IP'
IP_CONNECTION_HOST = '<IP Address>'
IP_CONNECTION_PORT = 23
IP_CONNECTION_PASSWORD = 'paradox' # IP Module password. "paradox" is default.
IP_CONNECTION_BARE = True

At the end of the day, this runs you less than R200, and has no fiddling with setting up a Pi.
Click to expand...
Found this post and want to thank you for such an easy solution to Paradox integration into Home Assistant. took me 2 minutes to flash this and a couple more to wire it and was good to go.
 
Hi, I am moving to a new house that doesn't have an alarm system in so need to install one.
I have been messing around with HA and really like it for other stuff and so keen to integrate the alarm system into HA.
I still have a lot to learn but time is not on my side to get the alarm system in.

Question: What is the best alarm panel to get installed by the security company that they can get it hooked up to their control room, (normal installation) but in future when I have the time just add a module of some sort to interface with HA to then do all the cool stuff.?
As per this thread, is the Paradox MG5050 one of the better options for this? any other suggestions.
Thanks
 
skydog said:
Hi, I am moving to a new house that doesn't have an alarm system in so need to install one.
I have been messing around with HA and really like it for other stuff and so keen to integrate the alarm system into HA.
I still have a lot to learn but time is not on my side to get the alarm system in.

Question: What is the best alarm panel to get installed by the security company that they can get it hooked up to their control room, (normal installation) but in future when I have the time just add a module of some sort to interface with HA to then do all the cool stuff.?
As per this thread, is the Paradox MG5050 one of the better options for this? any other suggestions.
Thanks
Click to expand...

I have a Paradox EVO192 and I can highly recommend it. Its a bit overkill though, even the installers told me the EVO192 is very excessive for my place lol

I bought my alarm from Alarmtec last year black Friday since there was some good discounts. I got an independent installer to install the alarm and then I contacted a security company to come install their radio and link it to their control room. I not locked into any contract, so I can give 1 months notice if I want to cancel. I don't know of (and couldn't find) a single security company that installed Paradox systems though
 
Thanks for the pointers. Seems like Alarmtec have good pricing. now to work out what is the best panel and add ons to get the job done.
 
skydog said:
Thanks for the pointers. Seems like Alarmtec have good pricing. now to work out what is the best panel and add ons to get the job done.
Click to expand...

github.com

GitHub - ParadoxAlarmInterface/pai: Paradox Magellan, Spectra and EVO, with MQTT, Signal, Pushbullet, Pushover and others

Paradox Magellan, Spectra and EVO, with MQTT, Signal, Pushbullet, Pushover and others - ParadoxAlarmInterface/pai
github.com github.com

This is the github page for the home assistant paradox integration.

I read through that before deciding on getting the EVO192, since it has a serial baud rate of 57600 as compared to 9600 on the MP panels (I connect via serial, nothing more stable than a wired connection between the Pi and panel)
 
Building this tomorrow, my IP-150 module upgraded to v5.x so it is even more useless as with v4 and can't find any v1 IP-150 open stock on eBay anymore. E-mail the CEO of paradox how i feel about his methods.

I almost felt to throw out my EVO192+IP150 for an Ajax system until i saw this thread.
 
Last edited:
riaan3352 said:
Found this post and want to thank you for such an easy solution to Paradox integration into Home Assistant. took me 2 minutes to flash this and a couple more to wire it and was good to go.
Click to expand...

Yeah,

I almost couldn't believe it myself when it worked, like, first-time.

And cheap, and (relatively-depends on wifi connection) stable.
Oh, and after banging my head on the ip100 module for so long...

Thanks for letting me know it was useful and I'm not living in a weird parallel universe of one.
 
@gbyleveldt do you think i can use an old RPI1 or RPI2 for this? Seems like no one has stock of any model of Zero's and I have a couple of old Pi's laying around.

My IP-150 / SWAN is driving me mad.

Regards
 
jeevadotnet said:
@gbyleveldt do you think i can use an old RPI1 or RPI2 for this? Seems like no one has stock of any model of Zero's and I have a couple of old Pi's laying around.

My IP-150 / SWAN is driving me mad.

Regards
Click to expand...
Have you been unable to access it remotely?

Mine has been down for a while now and my installer says it's not a problem from our side.
 
jeevadotnet said:
@gbyleveldt do you think i can use an old RPI1 or RPI2 for this? Seems like no one has stock of any model of Zero's and I have a couple of old Pi's laying around.

My IP-150 / SWAN is driving me mad.

Regards
Click to expand...
I'm sure it would work, probably overkill actually.
 
Perhaps they won't be stocked again?

There's plenty of stock of the Zero 2 W but they're just waiting for ICASA approval.

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

The upgraded processor provides Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W with 40% more single-threaded performance, and five times more performance
www.pishop.co.za www.pishop.co.za
 
gbyleveldt said:
I'm sure it would work, probably overkill actually.
Click to expand...
I'm also setting this up - on a Pi3 - couldn't find anything less powered. But will probably run other services (other than PAI) on it
 
Mzezman said:
I'm also setting this up - on a Pi3 - couldn't find anything less powered. But will probably run other services (other than PAI) on it
Click to expand...
Pretty much the only reason I used the Pi Zero W is because it's small and I could install it in the alarm panel itself as a self contained unit. Any Pi would work, but if you want to run other services off it you might want to have an ethernet connection to it rather than run wirelessly. Depends on what you want to run of course.
 
great - thank you. Using your guide i managed to get PAI runnning on it in docker - now just waiting for the USB-TTL connector to be delivered and hopefully this should work (fingers crossed). I have HASS running on a Pi4 and that's all it runs
 
I've been wanting to do this for quite a while now, was first trying to source old IP-150's from ebay a few years ago, then left it for a while. Then contemplated to maybe just replace my EVO192 with Ajax but postponed that. At the time it looked like the easiest integration with HASS. Luckily I saw this thread a few weeks ago. (ordered my items from Micro robotics today).

Yesterday just made me realize again I need to do this ASAP since SWAN Cloud services were offline and I couldn't activate my alarm remotely. @Charly
 
jeevadotnet said:
I've been wanting to do this for quite a while now, was first trying to source old IP-150's from ebay a few years ago, then left it for a while. Then contemplated to maybe just replace my EVO192 with Ajax but postponed that. At the time it looked like the easiest integration with HASS. Luckily I saw this thread a few weeks ago. (ordered my items from Micro robotics today).

Yesterday just made me realise again I need to do this ASAP since SWAN Cloud services were offline and I couldn't activate my alarm remotely. @Charly
Click to expand...

Same here. I've only just started reading through the documentation of HASS and the Paradox interface so there's a few things I'm not completely familiar with. I'm planning on doing this as a holiday project in my time off but I need to get the hardware so long before everyone closes.

Is it implied that HASS is running on the same machine as the interface? If so, is this required?

Does a Zero W have enough computational power to run HASS with the Paradox interface? I've also only got a RPI 1 so I guess that's definitely not gonna run both of them.

What are you going to run HASS on? I've got a pretty beefy VPS I could run it on but perhaps that's a big no-no and I definitely wouldn't want to if it adds a significant amount of latency.

These questions aren't directed only at you. I'd appreciate the input of anyone that could help.
 
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