So I wanted to just post this to the community and see if anyone is interested. In a app i wrote and thinking about porting to HE.
Simply put the app in question is basically a management app for Arlo Cameras. The premise behind using the app with HE would be to allow HE to work through Smartthings to facilitate management of the cameras through the new Smartthings Arlo Integration. Hub connect would be used with a few virtual switches to allow for HE to gain control and use Smartthings as a passthrough similar to IFTTT or Node_Red.
At it's core the app basically manages how to initiate recordings and when the cameras are active by creating psuedo modes in Smartthings or now HE. Is this something anyone would be interested in?
This method isn't perfect but it does work long as the other pieces are functional.
So as it turns out i already have Arlo Assistant installed on my hub. What i am really doing now is just clean up for functions that are either just simply managed differently or simply dont exist. The simplest examples of that are sms notifications, integration into the Smartthings ADT Alarm Panel. They dont exist here. I think the basic methodology came over fine though.
What i tested thus far has just been getting it installed and then creating a psuedo mode that is triggered by a virtual switch. Then when that is active triggering a recording switch to record based on motion. So far i watched the logging and that all worked. Well and reliably.
Now i just need to validate all of the other mode triggering options like hub mode, hsm(wash SHM) mode, time based trigger, and the general mode option.
Then i need to go back and validate all the action options to trigger recordings.
I would also like to figure out how to add pushover notifications to it for HE.
If you utilize HubConnect over to ST, it will bring over the Arlo Cameras as motion devices (HubConnect Motion Sensor for the original, and HubConnect DomeMotion Sensor for the Pro).
HubConnect also has a arlo device driver. If you share it from Smarttings as the appropriate device and then change the device handler in HE to the correct Arlo Pro camera handler it seems to get all of the avaliable functions.
Ok so it appears most of the functions work except for notifications. It appears the routine in my app does not translate at all from Smartthings to HE. So it will need a complete rewrite. I am looking for examples to figure that out now.
So last night I wasn't seeing any motion events through HubConnect but went into the ST app and changed the “placeholder” device type to Arlo Camera and Camera Pro as appropriate, and then changed to the HubConnect Arlo Camera driver on the Hubitat side and hit Sync. Not sure which change did it but I’m now receiving motion events for all.
Just as an academic exercise I looked to see what the difference was on getting the data from Alexa vs HubConnect. Average difference was approximately 0.072 seconds in the favor of Alexa.
So after further review the routine i was using looks like it needs just one line edited to get the same functionality that it can have with the port. I have tested it this morning and getting regular notifications. so now just looking at updating the code in the correct spots so that notification is enabled Through out the app.
Alright. I think it is ready for atleast those brave souls looking to try it out and see what it is about. I want to remind everyone that this is a app that works through Smartthings with it's new integration. We are just creating a environment so HE can control as many things as we can. If Smartthings has a problem then this will to. It isn't perfect, but just what we may have.
So as explained before there are a few prereq's to for AA to even be an option.
You need Arlo cameras integrated with Smartthings using their new Integration with the Smartthings API's.
You need hubconnect to link Smartthings and to Hubitat with version Hubconnect 2.0 RC2. If you don't have that setup please do a search for that forum. I believe you can do this without a hub so it should work for everyone. Please let me know if that isn't the case.
Once you get Hubconnect working you will need to share the Cameras from Smartthings to Hubitat as Motion devices. Once they appear on the Hubitat side change their device handler to the Hubconnect provided Arlo camera Device handlers. Click on refresh and sync to ensure all options appear.
Once the camera devices show up as cameras on hubitat create virtual switches for each camera to be used to trigger recordings. Share these switches back using HubConnect to go from Hubitat to Smartthings.
Now setup a Smartthings automation to trigger a recording when the shared switch is flipped to on.
At this point you should now be able to install Arlo Assistant and get it running between hubconnect and Smartthings.
When installing the app there are allot of options pay careful attention as it is easy to confuse selections since we are using virtual switches for certain functions. I will look at cleaning that up later with custom virtual device handlers.
One thing to consider when setting this up is that the goal is to bring mode management into HE. This means you would setup the Arlo Cloud to always be armed and simply not record, or record and let it dedup request for recording. Then we use HE to control if the cameras are simply on our off
Most of the routines are a straight copy for what was on Smartthings. Let me know what you think and if it is even worth it.
Becuase this in a way piggy backs on Smartthings Integration it does.
I would expect it to do so. This really should be a function of HubConnect sharing it as a siren device. I will have to test it this further, but it was functional in Smartthings. I would expect a local alarm to work fine.
Motion triggers will be handled by HubConnect integration once setup. The Arm/Disarm is a interesting thing to explain. You have to think of it a bit different when not using Arlo's Cloud to control it. It is like this. In the Arlo Cloud you would leave it as Armed. In HE/SM to be fully disarmed you would have the cameras simply turned off. If you want to recieve motion alerts but not record you would simply leave the camera turned on but leave that camera out of the configured AA mode so it wouldn't trigger any recordings.
Oh and just to be clear I have done a bunch of validation testing but haven't fully set this up in a production environment even here at my house. So if you absolutely depend on it this may not be 100% you want to run unless you don't have any other options. I will probably configure it to run fully in my house later.
In the New ST app, if you don’t have an Arlo account set up, you’ll need to Add Device | Camera | Arlo and then enter your Arlo account cerdentials. It should then bring over all of your Cameras and Basestations.
I have the Arlo camera's set up in Smartthings using the new API, much like you describe. I also have them set up using Homekit with virtual switches (motion sensors) in home bridge to trigger outside lights. It seems like the Homekit is a little quicker that Smartthings... but are you creating a recording and storing it independent of the Arlo cloud recording using Smartthings? or is it the same as a custom mode in Arlo cloud and setting it to record when motion is sensed?
Arlo doesn't really provide a way to pull the video from the cameras and store locally. The only method I know that seems to be able to do that is with Tiny Cam pro. I didn't test it that far, but it appears you could setup a Tiny Cam Pro server and actually record all of the arlo content locally. It may even allow CVR, but agian i didn't test it that far.
What this integration does is simply allow you to create pseudo modes in Hubitat based on Hubitat conditions. Once that is done you can use those modes to trigger actions based on conditions in Hubitat like other motion sensors, or criteria. This is similar to how AA works in Smartthings, except in Smartthings you trigger the recording locally within the app, Here in HE it triggers a switch which in turn Smartthings will trigger the recording from using a Automation setup in the Arlo Assistant Integration.
The basic concept of how this all works is like this
Arlo is always in mode in the arlo cloud of armed. That mode doesn't trigger recordings and if needed sends notification to some dummy location.
Arlo is using the new integration with Smartthings. This integration is simply used for 2 things
a. Trigger recordings from a virtual switch in Smartthings. This requires a virtual switch to be setup in Smartthings either Smarthings or Hubitat and then shared to the other platform.
b. Report various arlo events to Hubitat with Hubconnect.
Once the above is setup then Arlo Assistant in Hubitat takes care of the rest.
a. AA allows you to create psuedo modes that run locally on the Hub. The psudeo Mode can be triggered by a few things.
HSM Mode
Hub Mode
Hub and HSM Mmode
Switch
General rule which is always active
b. Once a mode is triggered AA will then Activate and deactivate cameras based on selection. This is how you would actaully arm or disarm cameras at given conditions.
c. Lastly you can have up to 5 rule sets in a given mode setup that is based on trigger actions from events locally on the hub. These trigger events range from Motion, Switches, Sound, Smoke, etc. Once triggered you have a few different things you can do. You can of course tell the camera to record, Turn on/set level light, turn on sirens for an alarm action, and send notification.
So I've finally set this up in the ST app (not using AA just yet). As a slightly OT question on ST, I noticed that if you turn a camera on or off in the Arlo app the status doesn't seem to get reflected in the ST app. The device status shows checking when I start the ST app but never updates to the correct status (it works fine the other way around when I turn the camera off on the ST app).
EDIT: Ok so I discovered that the ST app does not update the camera status for 6 hours unless you manually refresh the device state in the linked services section. So you need to use the ST app to control Arlo otherwise it will get confusing real fast.
