Best HSM Arming Method

i use the older smartthings presence.. i thing there are still some available at best buy online

For presence I use Life360. Some people combine presence using wifi, life360, and the hubitat app for accuracy. There are apps out there like combined presence to help keep things accurate. Careful with wifi as that tends to give false reads because your phone will turn wifi off to save battery.

As for colored bulbs, I use Sengled color bulbs. They integrate well with HE and also they do not repeat which is a plus.

Node red is a beast of it's own and has challenges. The support is good, but there's still a curve. If you haven't used it.
I have HSM arm automatically for these modes It always monitors for smoke and water, just door and windows turn off
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this is going to be a read, and I'll apologize now. I've had a lot of time to set up my environment.
All of my rooms are set up to be hands off. I have motion sensors set up in every room. Several in the kitchen/dining to keep lights on when it matters. I have lights that turn on an hour before sunset and off an hour after sunrise. I use qi chargers to change modes from home to quiet time, quiet time to night, night to home. I have lights above my cabinets that brighten to motion and dim when it's quiet. This makes it so that we don't have to turn on the overhead lights for just a drink of water. But, if activity continues for an extended amount of time, then they turn on. All of this is based on our habits and how we use our home. I don't use voice commands. I've spent a lot of time observing out habits and making notes. Tweaking things to be hands off. This works for us. Dashboards are for troubleshooting in my environment. outside lights turn off when we go to bed, but turn on if it's still dark outside and we're leaving for work, etc. Bathrooms have light strips in them that turn on at night to be able to take care of business. I don't need to wake up the house. I can assure you I won't be doing my hair at 3 am. A dim light strip will suffice. Just enough to make aim. :grin: If I close the bathroom door, the vanity lights will turn on at night, but turn right off as soon as the door opens. Just in case a brighter light is necessary. I use a lot of motion and contact sensors in our house to make things appear like our house knows what we want. And usually it does. There's only a few things I'll still be tweaking, and I'm planning on some outdoor lighting that might be a challenge. I'm sure I'll be posting some project here about that. It's been a remodel in the making. If you have any questions about being hands off, please tag me. Since I have this in every room, it would become a book. Closet lights turn on when the doors are opened type of automations. Good luck and I'm happy to help if you need a sounding board.

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I have mine and my wife's phone connected to HE app. Is that accurate enough for presence?

I believe I got mode changes setup correctly based on Mode Manager rules, even set Arm and Disarm away based on phone presence, but...

I have kids that come and go even when we're both away. I'm thinking of providing an Alexa command for them to arm/disarm like stated above, but hopefully override our phone presence just in case we're both still away. Using a virtual switch, what is the best setup in HE to get the right trigger to arm and disarm?

Thanks @davidcwright59, I'll check out the bulbs!

I use life360 for presence. I've found that it's all punchy, but if you use an app such as combined presence, you can let HE determine presence based on several different degrees. You can have all of them and include wifi and if 2 of 3 are true, then you're home. False, you're away. It seems to be really accurate when you combine more than one avenue with presence.

You can put presence on your kids without "invading their privacy" using the hubitat app. You don't have to allow them access to the dashboards, etc. You'll have to play with that to see what works for you. Also, I have a smart lock that changes the mode to home when my cleaning lady comes to the house. That way the lights work for her. That is set up according to the code that is entered in the door. If you have a smart lock, you could use that to change mode for the kids as well.
For that one, you might have to use rule manager to change your mode as my rule would read If any device is present, then change to home and if all devices are not present change mode to Away.

Your only limitation is your imagination. A smarthings sensor works really well too as long as you make sure that the batteries don't die. I base the arm and disarm on presence. If we're home and awake, monitor fire and leak. Night and Away, monitor everything. WE have one door that's not monitored so that we don't wake up the world when we let the pups out at night. It's all about what works for you. My kitchen lights brighen up when we enter the room in the evening and one set actually turns off when we're in bed. Acts as a night lit. All based on motion.

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Some great discussion and wonderful ideas. I posted two additional questions outside of this conversation to help understand or troubleshoot some things, but really appreciate all the responses.

I'm using mode manager to help switch between Home, Night and Away - with home disarming. Having troubles on it recognizing time and setting Return from Away correctly, but that was one of my questions.

I was trying to use presence with our iphones, but also voice command for the kids to arm/disarm Away. It won't "unlock" anything, but just change notification options for what is being monitored. But I was experiencing presence taking priority over any voice command (my second question), as there could be instances where we're away based on presence, but a kid comes home and try change mode but it won't due to our presence status.

I'm getting all my contact and motion sensors today to really pull this all together. I already had Wyze cameras, but since they don't integrate, I'm trying to best determine location of motion sensors while not doubling up on motion detection by Wyze.

A lot of ideas, but want to build and spend wisely with focus on security first.

@kahn-hubitat @april.brandt One last question please :slight_smile:

How do you cancel your alerts? If using a HSM setup not using a keypad, and trying to not rely heavily on dashboard, what's been your method of canceling?

I use a dashboard or unlock door .

Does a mode change and disarming cancel those alerts as well? I was going to test tomorrow, but thought I'd ask too. Trying to determine if I need to cancel alerts each time I return home and disarm the system. Wouldn't seem like I would need to as long as I disarm within the delay period...

It would help if you posted a screenshot of what you have. Depending on the alerts, you can cancel them with the press of a switch or button. Like the kitchen light or a pico. Whatever you want. You choose.

I have set up a button in an easily accessible spot for family to cancel Smoke/CO and Leak alerts.

I don't use intruder alerts as our comings and goings are very unpredictable, and family refuses to allow presence capabilities on their phones (privacy issues). I do have some speaker notifications on exterior gates opening outside of "normal" hours, and have a separate "Delivery" notification during normal hours to know when a delivery left behind a gate that I use for my deliveries.

I tested everything today and learned a lot, reconfigured everything, and think I have a great foundation for a system.

Alerts reset upon a disarm, but do not if you change from an Away to Night modes (both armed).

Had to create a security rest switch because if you switch mode (home to away), and try and arm system with alarm alerts monitored, the system will cancel arming if an alert is triggered, but the mode still changed. So when trying to rearm, it won't because the mode has already switched.

I'm debating on a siren. I use alexa for door announcements, so I'm really only missing alarm siren, but maybe i stick with my self monitory silent alarm.

I think the next step is trying node red for Alexa notifications as I'd like announcements if possible. I know Sonos is integrated, but I hard alexa isn't very good, and I don't care or really need to pay up to $200 for a speaker. Recommendations on node red?

I use Follow Me for spoken notifications, has some nice features. Follow Me works w/Echo Speaks.

@danabw where to even get started. New territory for me.

i'm using alexa fine. i just updated an older light driver with volume,, of course there is the full echo speaks...

the one issue with alexa is the cookie is kinda complicated for security reasons and you cannot send it speech messages too quick in a row..

@davidcwright59 Hello! I'm a Hubitat newbie, hopefully you can help by elaborating a little on your Alexa integration. I'd like to be able to tell Alexa "Goodnight" (or similar) to do the following:
Enable a couple Simple Automation Rules that automatically turn on lights when motion sensors are triggered.
Enable a couple related Notifications that alert me via the Hubitat iOS app when the same motion sensors are triggered.

Basically, in addition to having a time-based schedule (to ensure things are enabled during late night hours), I'd like to be able to activate these features earlier when going to bed via Alexa. How are you creating your rules/routines to accomplish this? Thanks a lot in advance.

In answer to your request, I have a screen shot of my Goodnight Rule.

The Trigger is a Momentary Virtual Switch named Goodnight setup in devices set for a 2 second off. The reason it is momentary is that you will never say "Goodnight off" it only turns ON. 2 seconds seems to work better with Alexa because it is in the cloud. In the Alexa app I have a routine called "Goodnight" who's only function is to turn this Virtual Switch ON. It will reset itself to off in 2 seconds. So when you tell Alexa Goodnight, Alexa will trigger the virtual switch and run the rule.

Within the rule itself, the first OFF statement shuts down all lights in and outside the house except the the Master Bedroom which is in use at the time. The Mode: Night sets the HE mode to night.
The Set Fan Speed: turns off all fans except the the Master Bedroom.
The HSM command: Arms Night so if any doors are opened the Alarm will go off.
The reason it is there twice delayed 10 seconds is because of the Nyckelharpa app.
The lock statement just locks the back door in case I forgot.

I don't really use the Simple Automations, because I find it too limiting. If you want rules to fire after you go to bed just use a night mode. The rule below use both mode and time to set it off.


I hope this helps.

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