Using the Motion Sensors of my Alarm System in Hubitat

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1

I have a Texecom alarm system with a lot of Motion Sensors around the house.

I would like to use them as motion sensors for automations in my system because:

  • They are very well placed in the house
  • They have infrared
  • They are wired

Here is how my alarm system looks inside.

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From what I understand, the motion sensors are probably the blue cables (maybe some of the others as well) and they give a dry contact indicating if there is a motion detected or not.

When seeing this, I can imagine a solution where I put a device that the wires connect to. This device would:

  • Be connected with hubitat and receive the dry contact as a motion sensor movement.
  • Pass the dry contact to the existing alarm system so that the alarm also works correctly

Does anyone know of any devices that can do that - or has done anything similar in the past?

Also, do you see any reason for me not to go down this rabbit hole?

2

Have a look at Konnected. It does what you want exactly.

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3

There are a few ways you can do it - 3 I can think of.

Konnected is one. Personally, as an experienced alarm engineer, I thought it looked awful. When I looked at some of their literature and looked at a panel that had been converted (butchered) I thought I'd be able to do a neater job after 10 pints of Stella.

The Fibaro Smart Implant can be used. 2 inputs, 2 outputs. You're effectively using the PIR's to trigger the inputs and the outputs connect back into your alarm. You could simply add several of the implants inside the existing panel.

I have a Honeywell Galaxy Dimension panel that I installed long ago. For that I have a third party comms module from Selfmon. I use that for Smartphone alerts and control of the system. It also provides a virtual http keypad that I use in my dashboards and I can monitor all detectors on the system using MQTT on a Raspberry PI. So now I can see the status of every device on the alarm in HE and create automations around any of the alarm devices.

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4

If I understood then a ECOLINK contact sensor would work. It has connections for external wires. You could setup a virtual motion sensor that shows detected motion when the contacts close.

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5

It may also be possible for you to hook up an Envisalink board.
Please check the technical specs - I've used it with a DSC Alarm panel.

6

I have 2 Envisalinks one on a DCS panel the other on an ADT and a Konnected on the same DSC panel. I find the Envisalinks super easy to use and report fast, But the DSC panel doesn't report motion devices when unarmed so I can't use them with routines to activate lights etc, on the ADT it does report motion, so all good there.. So I use the Konnected on the DSC to report motion and Envisalinks for home security. Konneted is another very good product, just a little more work to set up

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7

Thank you everyone for pointing me on the right direction - this is awesome :slight_smile: