Could probably find this on another forum, but thought everyone here would understand better what works and what does not.
I’ve ordered a Ring Alarm and I’m wondering if anyone has been able to use any other siren directly joinEd to their base station, other than the Dome DSM01 and have it functional during intrusion alerts? Has anyone tried the Neo Coolcam that Dome rebrands or another completely different siren?
I have my Z-Wave (all Dome I think) sirens joined directly to Hubitat. I don't actually have a virtual siren driver written if they are direct connected to the Ring base. I had sort of forgotten you could do that.
You can do it my way though. On the virtual Ring alarm device there is an attribute for if the alarm is sounding and you can RM that all up to any siren you want connected directly to Hubitat.
If you don't want to do it that way somebody has to convince me to wreck some of my rules by removing one of my sirens to direct connect it to the Ring base station. Then I can write a driver for it. Or I guess you don't have to the direct-to-Ring-connected-sirens in Hubitat.
So, I'm looking for the specs. The Neo Coolcam version supports more parameters in firmware than the Dome but the ones in the same parameter space look like they are the same. The product version and even the product ID are the same. Does that mean they would even have the same fingerprint? Can we gt all of the data we would need to see a full fingerprint from the Z-wave Alliance website?
The Dome and Neo Coolcam products might appear as the same thing to the hub.
https://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/1962
https://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/2059
It breaks my rule. Safety and security systems must be able to fulfill their duties on their own. So enhanced operations like turning on lights, unlocking doors where appropriate, etc., I’m all for that. But the crucial functions, no. I want those in the dedicated system they’re intended for.
I like to create a very unsettling experience for intruders. That’s what I do with our current system. I have two additional (proprietary unfortunately) external sirens in the house, in not very accessible spaces. Only problem is, any false alarms are also very jarring to the family. 
If that were to fail at the crucial moment due to my messing around with other software on the hub...could be trouble! 
Yeah, I know that it’s just a firmware difference between them. So a good price on a Neo Coolcam might be just the thing. But so far, I’m only seeing about a $18 savings for a Coolcam vs a Dome, so I’m wondering too about a more feature filled/louder siren. Cannot find anything on Reddit or other places so far. Might just order another siren like an Aeotec and see what happens.
Totally understand this. In fact, I might even join my sirens to my Ring base station in agreement. I'll think about it. The reason I had them on the Hubitat in the first place was so that I could use them as door chimes (when the doors opened and closed) but I stopped doing that. If I do that I'll let you know if the Aeotec can join because once you mentioned that I remembered I had one in my theater room.
Well... curiosity got the better of me. I pulled a Dome siren and the Aeotec siren from my Hubitat tonight and direct connected them to the Ring base station.
I'll update the repo later tonight or tomorrow with the changes.
This isn't bad news is it? Do they have an internal automation (local) on the Ring base station that allows the switch to be turned on upon an intrusion detection? That would allow the Aeotec siren to be triggerd via the switch activation right? I'd much prefer to spend more on the Aeotec AC powered siren than use the battery only Dome/Coolcam siren.
What about an otherwise useless Wink hub joined as a secondary controller? As long as I joined the siren to the Wink hub while their cloud service is still active, I could trigger it locally from the Ring base station? Or am I misunderstanding what's possible here?
I'm not following how this works. Only on first cup of coffee. 
Was it Aeotec Siren 5 or 6 you tested?
[Edit] Ordered a Siren 5 to play with.
The batteries on my Dome siren have gone completely flat. I purchased it new on November 17, 2019. We've only had two accidental triggers that lasted less than a minute. Is this the kind of crap battery life I can expect from these? It's not far from the Ring hub at all.
Would appreciate your input, as the return window closes tomorrow and if this is what I can expect, I don't think I want this siren.
I can't help you with the Dome siren but if you return it, you might try the Utilitech or Everspring siren. I have two and they pair and work flawlessly. I probably haven't changed the batteries in almost 2 years. You can find them under the Utilitech label on Ebay as cheap as $15.
They pair with HE flawlessly, or do you mean they pair with the Ring hub flawlessly? Looking to minimize failure points where security is concerned, so anything other than the Dome DMS01 that can pair with the Ring hub directly, I will try.
Even though it is basically a Neo Coolcam siren, so far I’m reading that only the Dome DMS01 works with the Ring hub. If you can confirm these other two are able to join the Ring hub, I’m in. Otherwise I’m going to have to wait for more compatible sirens to hit the market. Or eventually give in and go with an external siren on HE.
They pair to HE and are native devices on HE (at least listed as compatible). I am using @codahq 's Ring app and use HSM to trigger my Ring Floodlight cam sirens and my Utilitech sirens upon intrusion. That way sirens are going off inside and outside of the house. The Utilitech's alarm until you turn off the alarm and the Ring sirens turn off in 30 seconds unless you turn off the alarm sooner.
Thanks. OK, well I think this Dome DMS01 needs to go back. It's either defective, or has a battery drinking problem. Both are unacceptable.
The Utilitech sirens use 4 C cell batteries which probably speaks to why they last so long.
You would think two CR123A lithium cells would provide enough for this tiny siren. 
I have 2 Dome Sirens; both are paired to HE directly. I had one paired to Ring to write the driver but I moved it back over to HE.
The two I have paired to HE sip battery until an event and then they plummet. Both sat at 96-100% before the first event. One dropped to 76% or so after sounding for around 10 minutes. The other went to the 60s. The next event brought them down to 56 and 59 or so even though it was very short. Apparently sounding is a pretty traumatic ordeal for them. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it I actually had the speaker go bad on my first one (but Dome replaced it without any real hassle) and that's why their battery levels were slightly staggered.
When it was paired to Ring it did seem to be using battery a bit faster. I imagine they have their hub waking it up a good deal more often than I have the HE waking up.
I don't know that any siren would be better directly paired to the Ring. You have two options though.
If you are seeing bad battery life I don't think it is the Dome Siren's fault necessarily but rather the wake up interval they have chosen. Maybe Ring support can offer some insight to whether or not settings you make via a secondary controller will persist (I doubt they can). It might be safest to just return it for now.
Does the interwebs turn up anything about battery life of the Dome Sirens on Ring hubs?
By the way, I think I did try to join an Aeotec Siren 5 to the Ring hub. It joined successfully but it acted like a switch. It's been too long to remember details though.
Since there is no functionality for Z-Wave replace on HE I tend not to want to move things back and forth because it's a pain to redo the automations. If we could programmatically update apps then we could write an app that creates a virtual device, finds where a target "original" device is used and substitute it into the original apps. Then we could remove the original device, play with it else where, and then reverse the process when it comes back. Pipe dream though. They have much more important things to focus on than this.
Yeah, just a bit 
That's me
In due time, this is probably what I will do. I've got the old Wink 1 hub, and as long as their servers are operational, I'll be able to use their app to do that. I may go that route.
Maybe, but the interewebs don't turn up any complaints of bad battery life, so it may just have been a bad siren. It's on its way back to Amazon.
Me too. That only paired as a switch, but didn't sound when I turned it on, so it went back too.
Another thing I could do is just give in, put the secondary (tertiary actually) siren on HE and then I have a wide range to choose from. 
Well, I don't think you have time to determine if it's defective or not and still be in Amazon's return window. Maybe you'll find it's still draining quickly on HE. I didn't have a huge problem dealing with Dome so you could do that but then you have to wait and pay shipping. So this option is out if you want to be completely safe and boring.
Download the Hubitat app
