I’m a Wink convert from earlier in the year and up to this point I only have our Hub running our lights and switches, no motion sensors or anything.
Last night I left our garage door open by mistake and it just happened to be a night where someone was going through the neighborhood. They came into the garage around 3am and rummaged though my wife’s car and then took the keys to my Jeep that I normally leave hanging by the toolbox, which also included a keychain garage door opener. I have Arlo cameras that caught him coming in and going out but since I had alerts silent, I was not notified or woken when this happened.
The garage codes have been reset but now I’m trying to figure out the best way to have alerts and even some sort of alarm type setup if someone comes into the driveway during specific hours. Are there any suggestions to setting up some type of alarm system that can mesh with my Arlo cameras? Besides the Hubitat hub and Arlo cameras, I also have a Lutron Pro hub that is used to control wall switches.
Just trying to figure out the best place to start for some additional security going forward.
Until you get additional motion sensors you can utilize the onMotion event from your Arlo's through either Alexa (I'm told you don't actually have to have one, just create an Amazon account and link it with Arlo) or IFTTT, and have the event turn on a virtual switch/motion sensor in Hubitat. You can then use HSM, RM or webCore to initiate other responses/device actions.
Thanks for the quick response. Since I have no motion sensors now, are there any recommendations of the best ones to get to go with what I already have? Thanks!
Should you be using a LiftMaster opener I suggest adding a direct solution that does not use HE. I set this up prior to using Home Automation. It saved me from many return trips home to check the door, and returning home to open garage doors. I have mine set to close after 5 minutes.
I use an 889LM to auto close your door locally (one per door wired) and one 828LM gateway if you want to control a garage door from your phone. The MYQPack: 1 889LM 1 828LM may save a few dollars.
Also prior to purchase verify your opener model is compatible.
Once this is working I would add a Samsung Multisensor to the door and use this My Q app
If you use the Arlo cameras motion to alert at night you may want to look into their AI option so it will only alert on people so you don't get a lot of false alerts. We use Blue Iris as our NVR for our external cameras and I setup the free and local Deep Stack AI with it and have the motion sent to Hubitat which sends TTS to our Sonos speakers to notify us on motion and I think so far there have been 3 false alerts since setting up DeepStack with Blue Iris two of which were bugs on the camera lens. We also have an Iris v2 motion sensor which turns on the lights but that trips from bunnies and other small animals so I couldn't use that to alert us at night.
Since you don’t have a mesh in place you might want to look at Z-Wave sensors as they should support a longer distance from the hub before needing a repeater.
Thank you. I already have the 889LM and while I use the MyQ app to shut the door or check from my phone, I was not aware that I could program to make sure the door was closed at a certain time each night.
I feel pretty silly now knowing that I could have prevented all of this but at least I have some things programmed now to make sure the garage is closed every night.
If you can provide things that you already have device wise we can assist more.
I have my arlo’s set 2 different ways through hub connect on HE and our Alexa devices.
My setup is as followed I have my old smartthings hub connected to HE through hub connect which connects to HSM but I also use our arlo’s through our Alexas for direct speech announcements from them after hours. We have 2 camera systems a 4K system and the arlo’s I use the arlo’s for the pir motion sensors as our 4K cameras use pixel based detection the arlo’s cut down on the false alerts. I wouldn’t use the arlo ai alerts it slows down the notifications dramatically which is why camera placement is key. If you have Alexa devices or just your phones with the Alexa app on them you can create a virtual divide in HE and use the motion sensors from the Arlo’ s to set it off and tie that virtual device into HSM.
Thanks Biggkatt01, it sounds like your setup is exactly what I'm trying to achieve with direct speech announcements through Alexa devices when motion is detected on certain Arlo cameras after hours.
Our devices include:
(4) Arlo Pro 2 cameras and the base station for outside with premium subscription service
(1) Arlo Pro Outdoor Flood Light Camera (brand new so not connected yet)
(1) Wyze camera for inside
(1) Chamberlin WiFi Smart Garage Opener
(1) HE Hub
(1) Lutron Pro Hub
(3) Lutron wall switches
Multiple Sengled smart bulbs (controlled by HE)
Multiple Alexa devices scattered throughout the house
I also have a couple of IFTTT configurations mostly to tell Alexa to turn the camera off and on by voice control and then for specific times of days as well.
Ideally I'd like for certain smart lights (office above garage, etc.) to turn of and on when motion on cameras is detected as well.
I would just purchase maybe 1 z wave plus motion sensor to connect to HE, the only reason I say that is that we don't rely on the Alexa announcements 100% only because it is cloud based and we have charter internet and at times our service goes out for times between 20 to 30 mins 2 to 3 times a month your service provider maybe better but don't rely on it 100%.
Again I know kind of expensive but they are rock solid as well. as I stated above we have a couple of houses that we inherited from family, We live in Georgia but still have 3 houses in Maryland that we let family reside in. My mothers old house we had the same situation going on my sister stays there with her kids my nephew left out one day left the garage door open and when he got back the house was ransacked so I purchased another HE a c-5 took a trip up there I had a number of Zwave sensors laying around as in my house in Georgia is mostly zigbee i used that in the house up there and needless to say it has saved my nephews butt on more then 1 occasion.
But those sensors combined with your Arlo cameras with Alexa speaks will keep you covered local and cloud.
@Vettester Same, using the Maker API to present virtual motion sensors then using the [idnumber]/active? line from that Maker API instance in the alert MQTT option in BI and we get the Sonos anouncement within a second or 2 most of the time, a few times it has been more like 20 seconds but that's really rare.
You can use hub connect Maker Api or Alexa and google home with the Hubitat skill added in Amazons app or Google home. if you cant use hub connect, depending on what type of phone you use you can use for Iphone Siri shortcuts or if you have an Android phone the possibilities are endless. But Hub connect is my prfered way of doing it and the fastest by far.
I wasn't aware hub connect could be used like that, I'll have to check that out. Can you explain how Alexa or Google could be used? I'm not able to figure out how those would be used. Thanks.
Create a Virtual device in HE go into the Alexa Echo Skill on HE and make it available to Alexa via the app. From there depending on which cameras you have setup with your amazon account you can have them interact with that virtual device when it detects motion, for my Georgia house I use the Arlo cameras just for there pir motion sensors when motion is detected they make an announcement on my selected Echo devices and in HE through hub connect from my smartthings connection it controls any lights or HSM if I choose that, it works super good for us. my only problem is that because smartthings is moving away from the old app and the IDE and moving to the new app I will lose my local connection through hub connection and I will have to depend on Alexa cloud to do the work, the old way I had a local and a cloud connection now with their decision to go that route I will only have a cloud connection with my Arlos unless some other way is found.
Biggkatt01, can you expand a bit on how to create this virtual device and connecting it to your Alexa Echo devices and Arlo cameras? I'm new to doing anything with my Hubitat beyond simple light controls for my Sengled bulbs. I've tried using the Hubitat Safety Monitor to alert when motion is detected using some new Sengled Outdoor floodlights but those are not working well so far. I'd like to try using my Arlo cameras instead to alert, including an announcement and turning on Safety Monitor lights like you have done. I've figured out how to get the Amazon app to make announcements to the Echo devices if one of the cameras has motion but not understanding how to have this work within the Hubitat itself really
