I've never used HSM yet. But friday night there was an attempted home break-in only 5 houses down the street. So yesterday I finally ran the Ethernet for one of my PoE Cameras, and now I want to hook up HSM.
However in thinking about how I want my "Home Security" to work.... what I had dreamed up is something like below, or similar. I can capture them on camera, but what good does that do if I'm not home and they already did something bad? Plus criminals hide their faces.
My goal is really not to "catch" them, but to deter them. A professional criminal might even think they can run inside and be quicker than police come, etc. But my goal would be to make them think "Oh ■■■■, someone just woke up!"
Outdoor Activity detected
Wait 5 second, then turn on the hallway light.
Wait 5 more seconds, then turn on living room light, (and alert me)
5 more seconds and if activity hasn't stopped, flash all the outdoor lights. (and alert me LOUDER)
5 more seconds sound the alarm
This doesnt seem possible with HSM. Seems like everything is immediate. I can however trigger a virtual switch and then automate what i want with RM...but that seems like the long way around.
Are other people doing similar stuff? or have suggestions?
At this point I would just skip HSM all together. Just make a rule in RM or somewhere else and have it run based on mode or some other condition for “armed”
I like the idea so I'll be following this one, yes I believe you will have to go the RM way or whatever other method tickles your fancy (webcore, NodeRed, write your own app, etc).
If you add sirens and stuff, like you said HSM could trigger a virtual switch that would start a RM rule to turn on lights after sunset or depending on the mode. This way, you will still have HSM that will do what it has to do during the day.
You could also add an IKEA/SONOS speaker hidden outside somewhere or in the house and have a virtual dog bark his head off (youtube for some nice barking dogs).
I agree, I want all the lights on. But a "pro" might recognize that as home automation. Would rather have them turn on in sequence to make it look more real.
The other main reason I want it gradual, is that i want to put checks in between. I don't want the siren to go off just because my camera saw a garbage can blow over in the wind.
Have a text message sent to your phone via Twillio, check your cameras recordings and then start the siren with your phone via a dashboard that has a pin number associated to it so that no one turns that siren on by mistake.
Just a warning from experiences of a buddy of mine who did something like this a while back. His biggest issue wasn't setting up the automations, but dealing with false positives. He kept getting woken up by alarms for spiders, moths, etc., hanging on and around his cameras, coyotes, skunks, racoons walking by, trash blowing, cars and people innocently walking by his house, etc.
Worst case was one night when someone walking their dog around 1AM came into his yard twice entering and leaving his cul-de-sac (dog seemed to really find the smells in his yard enticing), waking him up each time.
Took him a while to get things tuned, and during that period the WAF hit lows previously unseen. He wasn't too happy either.
Actually the problem is more in finding a keypad. The old Iris Gen 2 keypads were my favorite, but hard to find now. Recently HE added support for the Ring Gen 2 Keypads, so you may want to check them out.
I do have Foscam's for my outdoor cameras which enable area based motion detection. So even if my CAM sees part of the street, I can have it ignore that. But when motion is detected, it starts recording and send an alert.
I think his lowest point was when she suggested that he put all the dumb switches back in and remove the cameras because "You can't figure out how to make this work, anyway."
