Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

Posted on
Thu Aug 08, 2013 6:07 pm
neilgreene offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

DPattee wrote:
My bridge and 2 detectors came in this week (1 wired, 1 battery CO). I linked the two detectors together, and then I linked the smoke bridge to the battery powered detector (not directly to both of them).

When I press the 'test' button on either of them, I receive the "Smoke Bridge" on (testing executing) message in the log twice (I assume once per device?). So, looks good that I can set some triggers based on receiving info.

But, I'm not seeing the overall device state every return back to "Off". There is no "all clear" command in the event log either. Is it expected that the smoke bridge go 'off' at some point?

I clicked the button in the UI and that turned it off, but I don't know what that actually does. As soon as I did another test, it turned back "on" and didn't turn off on its own again.


My smoke bridge does the same thing. Never goes to OFF status after issuing the TEST by triggering the test from my FIRST ALERT alarm.

Posted on
Thu Aug 08, 2013 6:09 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

The SmokeBridge is supposed to send out a scene #5 command to clear the alert state, but I'm not sure it does that when performing the testing sequence. Therefore in that case you will need to use the Turn Off button in the UI to clear the state.

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Posted on
Tue Nov 26, 2013 5:20 pm
CraigM offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

I'm looking to replace my old smoke detectors, but having trouble confirming which product(s) I need to purchase.

WHAT I HAVE
- 6 Hardwired Kidde [romex = black/white/red/ground] Can I assume the red wire is how they are linked together for communication?

WHAT DO I NEED?
- I obviously want to use the existing wiring
- The First Alert SA521CN-3ST One-Link is Wired/Wireless
Do I need 6 of these, or only 1 + 5 Wired only? [will any of the 5 trigger the 1 wireless and send the signal to the Smoke Bridge?]

WHAT ABOUT CO2?
- First Alert doesn't seem to make a Smoke/CO2 Wired/Wireless combo that I could just substitute for one of the SA521CN-3ST smoke only.
- The only model I see is the SCO501CN-3ST battery combo, which is kind of a waste since I only need the CO2 feature [it would be within 15' from one of the wired smoke detectors]

Any insight would be helpful

How valuable would you rate your need for a Smoke Bridge in your HA setup. If I take the SB out of the equation, then there is no need for wireless at all. Is all the extra $$/confusion worth having a SB?

Posted on
Tue Nov 26, 2013 5:57 pm
nsheldon offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

I recently started replacing my smoke detectors for ones that are/will be connected to Indigo. I have 5 total (3 bedrooms, 1 hall, one family room/dining room area). After looking into the First-Alert and INSTEON Smoke Bridge idea, I decided to go the Z-Wave route instead, using the Z-Wave compatible (and Indigo supported) First Alert ZCOMBO (carbon monoxide/smoke) and ZSMOKE (smoke only) detectors. They appear to only be available at Lowe's (marketed for their "Iris" system). I've only got the ZCOMBO installed so far in the family room/dining room area. It reports basic info to Indigo (alert on/off, battery level). I found that the ZCOMBO and ZSMOKE are generally cheaper than the OneLink models too.

However, I don't have any wired sensors, so there's no need to replace the existing ones with wired ones. Plus, if you don't already have a Z-Wave interface attached to your system, that'd be an extra cost as well.

Posted on
Fri Nov 29, 2013 8:16 am
hamw offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

I'm considering adding smoke detectors. Why did you choose the Z-wave? To get started with a Z-wave system or do you think they are better -- disregarding the cost difference?

Also, regarding Z-wave and First Alert, how robust are their wireless transmissions? My house is old with plaster walls and is basically a wifi signal killer. Would hate to buy something and not have it be able to communicate.

BTW I was looking online and saw Walmart's pricing for the First Alert at about $38.00 each.

Posted on
Fri Nov 29, 2013 9:13 am
midd offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

Just adding my 3 cents, but I have Zwave stick and also use a smoke bridge. It's really all about dollars and cents at this point. The First Alert OneLink detectors have come down in price since I purchased them over the summer. Lowe's carries the Zsmoke detectors for $30. Amazon probably has the best deal for the OneLinks, price depends on which models you want. They have 2 packs similar to the Zsmoke model for $76. Factor in the cost of the Smoke Bridge ($35) or the Z wave USB stick ($59 at Machomestore).

I have a variety of Onelink detectors, some hardwired, some with CO/Smoke Detection (Battery operated). I have to replace 2 more detectors. I could get some Zsmoke detectors and mesh them with the OneLinks using triggers in Indigo.

Craig,

I would simply replace one of your detectors with the wireless CO/Smoke combo unit. That's what I did with 2 of mine. One on my main floor and one in the basement. I simply capped the wires and installed the wireless where the old ones were. Set them up so they will communicate. Yes they will all communicate with each other. I have setup triggers to tell me that my detectors are going off.

Indigo 7, Monterey (12.1) on a 2009 Mac Pro..

Posted on
Fri Nov 29, 2013 2:11 pm
nsheldon offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

hamw wrote:
I'm considering adding smoke detectors. Why did you choose the Z-wave? To get started with a Z-wave system or do you think they are better -- disregarding the cost difference?

Also, regarding Z-wave and First Alert, how robust are their wireless transmissions? My house is old with plaster walls and is basically a wifi signal killer. Would hate to buy something and not have it be able to communicate.

BTW I was looking online and saw Walmart's pricing for the First Alert at about $38.00 each.

I chose the Z-Wave option for both reasons. I wanted to get started on Z-Wave and it seemed a good place to start since I didn't have any smoke detector integration to begin with (so I wouldn't be replacing existing home automation functionality). Also, with the OineLink/INSTEON Bridge option, you can't distinguish which detector is throwing an alarm. If any OneLink alarm in the house goes off, they all do (including the INSTEON Bridge) and you can't tell whether the alert originated from the kitchen or a bedroom. That may not be important for actual emergencies, but for false alarms (lots of cooking in the kitchen, for example), knowing from which alarm the alert came helps me determine if it's a false alarm or not (especially if I'm not home any my wife is).

I can't really speak to the robustness of the Z-Wave protocol or hardware. I only have 2 Z-Wave devices right now (the ZCOMBO and an Aeotec door sensor) and both are relatively close to the Z-Stick so I've yet to have any communication failures. From having read other forum posts on the Z-Stick, it's apparently important to have it elevated, preferably with a powered hub, and to pay attention to the orientation of the stick (it's apparently somewhat directional if oriented horizontally). My house is also not real large and is built of wood and drywall, so signal penetration isn't a huge problem comparatively.

Posted on
Sun Jan 05, 2014 1:16 pm
zeigh offline
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Location: Prescott Valley, AZ USA

Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

Are there any step-by-step instructions for setting up a Smoke Bridge with a First Alert ONELINK smoke/CO detector configuration with Indigo (version 6.0.7)?

I have set up 16 various Insteon devices in the last 24 hours in my new home. Just when I was thinking that I was a Techno Geek God, I stumbled over the Smoke Bridge setup with a First Alert ONELINK smoke/CO detector. The devices are only communicating the basic test notification with Indigo. My goal is to get all of the detector messages sent via email/text and I have indeed accessed the seven groups for this (under Insteon Command Received), but just don't have it in me to do any more trial/error from this thread to find the best solutions here. Yup, I need the Dummies version of instructions.

BTW, I do have to hand it to the developers of Indigo for their hard work in the software design. Indigo is intuitive enough to seek solutions by itself or relatively easily with a little tinkering. This is good because the individual manufacturer instructions for most Insteon devices don't completely apply. Someone who thinks in a black/white logical fashion might go crazy, as you have to reason more globally to find the right path, like a puzzle.


More microchips than sense,
Dr. Z.

“Technological change is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.” (Albert Einstein, 1941),
Dr. Z.

Posted on
Mon Jan 06, 2014 9:46 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

Once you have the detectors linked with the bridge, then you should just create the Indigo device for the bridge and Define/Sync it. The bridge sends the same commands regardless of which detector is sending them, so there isn't any way to differentiate between the detectors. You will want to create Triggers of type INSTEON Command Received to catch the various messages sent by the bridge (for the different alerts).

Image

Posted on
Sat Feb 22, 2014 10:36 pm
DPattee offline
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Location: Redmond, WA

Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

Holy cow, things went haywire tonight… Smoke alarm sounded (not nearly enough smoke from cooking to have set it off, but I guess I'm just used to having had no detectors for 5 years!) which was fine… The kitchen one and the nearby hallway one I can reach with my stepstool to silence.

First I received 'all clear' - that was unexpected, and breaks my alerting since I got a 'no worries, issue resolved' right off the bat…

Code: Select all
Feb 22, 2014 7:38:31 PM
  Received INSTEON                "Smoke Bridge" on (all alerts clear)
  Trigger                         Smoke Alarms - All Clear
  Google Voice SMS                Sending 'Smoke/CO Alarms - All Clear' to nnnnnnnnnn
  Received INSTEON                "Smoke Bridge" on (smoke detected)   
  Trigger                         Smoke Alarms - Smoke
  Action Group                    Emergency - Full On



I got 3 alerts for the smoke alarm coming on. The first 2 made sense (kitchen and hall were close enough), the 3rd… I don't know, maybe the guest bedroom was sensitive enough to pick it up.

So that temporarily flooded the insteon network, because I trigger on smoke alarm to turn every single light in the house on. It also resulted in 3 text messages (google voice plugin).

Not that big of a deal, but then… The 'all clears' started.

I pressed the 'silence' button on 2 detectors, and I'd turned the exhaust fans to 'high' (which I think I'll add to my fire emergency response action) somehow that resulted in 25 'all clears'.

That resulted in an attempt at 50 sms messages (25x 2 numbers) and getting throttled by Google (it accepted the 16 per number by the end… and it wasn't the first 16 then blocking, it was random, so it must have been a throttle not a hard limit).


Code: Select all
 Received INSTEON                "Smoke Bridge" on (all alerts clear)
  Trigger                         Smoke Alarms - All Clear
  Google Voice SMS                Sending 'Smoke/CO Alarms - All Clear' to 1111111111
  Google Voice SMS                Unable to send message.
  Google Voice SMS                Sending 'Smoke/CO Alarms - All Clear' to 2222222222
  Google Voice SMS                Message sent successfully.
  Received INSTEON                "Smoke Bridge" on (all alerts clear)
  Trigger                         Smoke Alarms - All Clear
  Google Voice SMS                Sending 'Smoke/CO Alarms - All Clear' to 1111111111
  Google Voice SMS                Message sent successfully.
  Google Voice SMS                Sending 'Smoke/CO Alarms - All Clear' to 2222222222
  Received INSTEON                "Smoke Bridge" on (all alerts clear)
  Trigger                         Smoke Alarms - All Clear
  Google Voice SMS                Message sent successfully.
  Google Voice SMS                Sending 'Smoke/CO Alarms - All Clear' to 1111111111
  Google Voice SMS                Message sent successfully.



This is 'less than optimal' behavior ;)

Posted on
Sun Feb 23, 2014 10:40 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

Yuck. I wonder what caused the flood of All Clear messages. I guess it could be that the Smoke Bridge being confused because of the multiple commands coming from the FirstAlerts, or if it was the caused by all the INSTEON traffic/congestion. Either way it sounds like a module firmware bug to me.

The only way I can think of to work around the problem in Indigo would be to have a Trigger on All Clear that sends the SMS and then does the Disable Trigger action on itself (with the auto-Enable checkbox selected to re-enable it after a minute or so). The tricky part is that you'll need a conditional so that you only fire the Trigger when smoke alarm state is in Smoke/CO2 detected state (not the All Clear state) to avoid having the bogus initial All Clear from messing up the logic. So you'll need to track the alarm/idle state in a variable and use that in a conditional. I think that if you trigger off of the Device State Changed instead it might work better since that only fires when the state changes, but one downside there is you cannot differentiate between smoke and CO2.

Image

Posted on
Sun Feb 23, 2014 2:37 pm
DPattee offline
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Location: Redmond, WA

Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

Ahh that's a good and easy idea… I've implemented the 'enable/disable trigger' actions.

I've left my 'low battery' and 'malfunction' triggers always-on, since they just send growl notifications.

But for my 'smoke' and 'CO' triggers, I added 'disable <this trigger> + auto-enable after 10 minutes' and 'enable <all clear trigger>' as the last actions in their list. And for the all-clear, I have it disable itself with no auto-enable.

I'll add setting the enabled/disabled defaults to my start up/power-returned script too so things shouldn't get left in a wonky state ever.

Posted on
Sun May 19, 2019 10:01 am
rbdubz3 offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

Several years late to this Smoke Bridge thread.. I got hold of an Insteon Smoke Bridge for cheap and I am in need of replacing smoke detectors so thought I'd give it a shot. I also found a good deal on the 3-packs of First Alert SC0500 Wireless Interconnect Smoke/CO/Voice alarms at Costco. If anyone has a strong "No - don't do it" please lemme know. BTW - I'm not quite ready to shell out the big bucks for 7 of the Nest Protects.

A couple of questions:
1) Any tricks to add/sync the Smoke Bridge to my Indigo setup? I've tried a few times, even fully resetting the Smoke Bridge. Each time it runs for a while and then fails with messages as below:

Code: Select all
   Linking - sending engine version request to 3A.E2.D9
   PowerLinc                       Linking - adding PowerLinc to module's database
   Error                           Linking - device failed to send engine version information
   Error                           linking failed
   PowerLinc                       Linking - entered discovery linking mode (240 seconds)
   PowerLinc                       Linking - exited linking mode


2) Anyone try the SCO500 model? It isn't one of the 'OneLink' detectors that Smarthome/Insteon says must be used? However, there is on online version of the instruction manual https://www.firstalertstore.com/store/i ... _Alarm.pdf that differs slightly from the physical copy that came with the detectors (fine print in online pdf shows 'SCO500). I did attempt the pairing of the Smoke Bridge to one of the SC0500 and it appears to work. I can see the Smoke Bridge lights change when conducting a test of the smoke detector

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Posted on
Sun May 19, 2019 1:09 pm
rbdubz3 offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

regarding my question #1.. After numerous attempts and as well as switching the location of the Smoke Bridge (closer to PLM) I was able to get thru the 'Define and Sync'.. Took a very long time getting thru each of the 'Groups'. I kept hitting the 240 second timeout for Indigo.

Gonna try to see if I can figure out question #2 (will bridge work with SCO500) now that the Smoke Bridge is sync-ed.

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Posted on
Sun May 19, 2019 3:31 pm
rbdubz3 offline
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Re: Insteon Bridge to FirstAlert Smoke Detectors

Ok - looks like I am past my question #2.. Looks like it is working now. After re-doing the installation steps to sync the Smoke Bridge with 'one' of the smoke detectors, I am now receiving the Insteon Group 3 'Test Executing' command. Of course now I am running into the same issues identified in this thread - basically getting a separate 'Test Executing' command for each of the 3 SCO500 detectors I have setup so far

My setup seems ok for now. If anyone has some advice after running your own setups for a few years - please pass along.. i.e. bad experience with these OneLink detectors / false alarms /etc..

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