Security with Indigo

Posted on
Tue Jul 18, 2017 5:01 pm
Fxguy offline
Posts: 153
Joined: Mar 24, 2011

Security with Indigo

Wondering if anyone would be willing to share what they have setup as far as security goes. What devices are you using? How do the notifications work? etc..

Recent crime issues in nearby neighborhoods have prompted a need to beef up security.

Thanks!

Posted on
Wed Jul 19, 2017 6:01 am
johnpolasek offline
Posts: 911
Joined: Aug 05, 2011
Location: Aggieland, Texas

Re: Security with Indigo

Mine is a sort of slowly growing system that is taylored to the fact that the only access to my house is a single private road with a couple of other houses on it prior to mine. I have a Dakota 2500 magnetic sensor buried beside the roadway after the last house prior to mine about 100 yards out from the house (I tried IR sensors, but the deer regard the road as thier primary trail to and from a local park). I also have magnetic reed switches in all the windows and doors which were put in when the house was built but never tied to a formal security system. All these sensors are wired into 4 rPis running Karl's piBeacon plugin. Motion sensors are a mix of Insteon and Aeon 6 in 1 Z-wave multisensors. (the insteons are being retired and replaced as they die since the Aeotecs have proven more reliable and the batteries last longer). For fire detection I use the first alert OneLinks in kitchen, bedroom hallways, utility room and attic tied to Indigo through a smokebridge. Three of the 4 doors have Z-wave locks. The rPis that monitor the doors and windows are also presence detection using tiles, fitbits, and the housekeeper's android phone, shutting off the alarm system and unlocking the door closest to the beacon whenever a valid beacon comes within range and locking all the doors and setting the alarm mode to on whenever the valid beacon count becomes 0. The freezer and refrigerator temperatures are monitored via Oregon Scientific temperature sensors through the RFX. And I have half a dozen leak sensors in places like under the hot water heater, washing machine, sinks, dishwasher, and ac drip pans. I use pushover to send alerts on leak detection, fire, freezer/refrigerator temp too high, etc... as well as if a door or window opens or there's movement in the house while nobody's home. The driveway sensor pushover action has a 90 second delay and a trigger to delete the action if the beacon count becomes greater than 0 in order to prevent false alarms. Images from the 6 ubiquiti security cameras are captured by Bert's Security camera plugin and saved (wirelessly to one of my neighbors via a script; we keep each other's data) any time there is an alert. Not totally secure by any means, but more trouble than it's worth to a bad guy to defeat it, especially since there easier pickings out there.

Posted on
Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:09 pm
eme jota ce offline
Posts: 618
Joined: Jul 09, 2009
Location: SW Florida

Re: Security with Indigo

I use DSC security hardware along with Travis' excellent DSC Plugin and an Evisalink. DSC can communicate with my monitoring service via landline, Internet, and cell call, alternatively. Monitoring services online are much more reasonably priced than what I had paid ADT / Brinks. Has worked extremely well for five years.

Purchased the DSC hardware and had it professionally installed. More $ upfront, but the installation was performed well (better than I would have). It allowed for installation of three different keypads, wired motion sensors, and a few extra sensors that I would n't have considered (but the pro did). The monitoring service reductions have more than paid for the installation and equipment costs at this point . All I have to do is change a couple batteries every four to five years.

Some of the nice integrations with Indigo include: Automatically locking doors when alarm is armed, sending me texts with the real name of any open window or door that is preventing alarm from arming (DSC panel provides a code number, but Indigo converts it to a real name, like Kid's bedroom window), provides me text notices of alarm events, automatically arms alarm in some circumstances, ....

Berkinet provided a separate plugin for other alarm systems, possibly Ademco. Someone else might provide their experience with that, but everything I've read over the years suggests that it's also an excellent option - making your hardware choice / preferences key.

Posted on
Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:32 pm
Fxguy offline
Posts: 153
Joined: Mar 24, 2011

Re: Security with Indigo

Thank you both! Definitely looking into some of the hardware options you both mentioned. I know you mentioned alerts, do any of your systems notify local authorities (for example notifying the fire department if a fire is detected) ?

Posted on
Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:46 pm
durosity offline
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Joined: May 10, 2012
Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne, Ye Ol' England.

Re: Security with Indigo

I’m also an extensive user of the DSC alarm system and think it’s wonderful. However just to make you aware that the new Neo series that they do is not compatible with the plugin for indigo (I’m yet to see anyone integrate it into any home automation package.. if anyone has seen one please post a link!) so you’d need to get the older PowerSeries PC1616, 1832 or 1864 system (which is still a very capable system).

You can have it monitored by a company for alerting fire/police but some won’t do self installed items and some won’t monitor ones that have integrations into other systems.

Also there’s two main ways of integrating it into indigo if you go down that route.. one is the serial IT100 interface and the other is the Envisalink which was previously mentioned… I have both and I’d generally recommend the serial one over ethernet if you’re planning to use it for triggers such as turning on lights when motion is detected.. I tried the Envisalink and just found its latency was just ever so slightly too slow to be useable. That said perhaps I was just spoiled by the speed of the serial interface.. if I’d started with the envisalink I probably wouldn’t be bothered by it. The envisalink does have some benefits over the IT100 serial link too.. it can do things like zone bypasses. (I’ve actually modified a copy of the plugin so I can have both running in indigo.. the IT100 for most jobs and the Envisalink for the features the IT100 can’t do)

Computer says no.

Posted on
Wed Jul 19, 2017 3:30 pm
johnpolasek offline
Posts: 911
Joined: Aug 05, 2011
Location: Aggieland, Texas

Re: Security with Indigo

Fxguy wrote:
Thank you both! Definitely looking into some of the hardware options you both mentioned. I know you mentioned alerts, do any of your systems notify local authorities (for example notifying the fire department if a fire is detected) ?


I don't notify the local police because the autoon and autooff means I get a false alarm every week or two when one of us hits the driveway alert and then doesn't get close enough for the beacon to trigger because we're messing around in the yard. And the fire department doesn't have anything set up for alerts from private citizens; all their non voice alerts have to come from licenced alarm companies. So it just alerts my phone, my brother's phone, and our neighbor who's swapping video data with us. And being able to use prism to pull up the cams and other data allows me to pretty quickly decide if I DO need to hit the local authorities based on what I see. So far it hasn't been necessary; it's always been one of us, the exterminator, or a couple of folks who overran the turnouts to one of our neighbors and just turned around and headed back once they realized their mistake. As I said, my primary security layer is geographical, with two( friendly but significantly large) dogs as a secondary layer... Strangers always look at them a little carefully, even though all they want is a head scratch.

Posted on
Wed Jul 19, 2017 8:36 pm
Fxguy offline
Posts: 153
Joined: Mar 24, 2011

Re: Security with Indigo

Could you point me in the right direction for setting up PiBeacon and the use of Beacons in general ?

Posted on
Thu Jul 20, 2017 7:24 am
eme jota ce offline
Posts: 618
Joined: Jul 09, 2009
Location: SW Florida

Re: Security with Indigo

Fxguy wrote:
Thank you both! Definitely looking into some of the hardware options you both mentioned. I know you mentioned alerts, do any of your systems notify local authorities (for example notifying the fire department if a fire is detected) ?



Yes. Alarmrelay.com receives alarm events from the DSC via internet with a cell phone backup and calls the authorities. Adding the cell phone module included the module cost and raised the monthly monitoring fee from about $9/month to about $18 / month. They call the police. No false alarms have been caused by Indigo, but I'm careful to minimize the Indigo / DSC integration to avoid false alarms.

Fire / smoke detectors are handled differently -- via the First Alert units that can communicate to an Insteon module, so fire department is not notified when (cooking) causes an alarm, but Indigo sends me a text whenever there is a smoke detector event and turns on lights near exits, etc. in case there's a non-cooking event.

Posted on
Thu Jul 20, 2017 7:38 am
johnpolasek offline
Posts: 911
Joined: Aug 05, 2011
Location: Aggieland, Texas

Re: Security with Indigo

Fxguy wrote:
Could you point me in the right direction for setting up PiBeacon and the use of Beacons in general ?


http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=187

And if you look in the rest of Karl's Plugins, he also has other options for presence detection, although the Tiles are working out well for us.

Posted on
Thu Jul 20, 2017 7:39 pm
Fxguy offline
Posts: 153
Joined: Mar 24, 2011

Re: Security with Indigo

Talk about upgrade disaster! Today I went to Menards to pick up some Insteon Window / Door sensors. I need 8 and they only had 2. Also, my current Indigo Server is running on a 2008 Mac Pro that cannot upgrade past OS 10.7 and so I decide I'm going to move my PowerLinc modem and server upstairs to my wife's much newer iMac. Get the server transferred over and suddenly half my house won't respond. My bridge / extender has gone bad! I just replaced my Powerlinc Modem a few weeks ago and now the bridge!

I've got a new bridge and raspberry pi 3 on their way. I also have a D-Link 5020L wireless camera I've setup with Cynical Security Spy Plugin and the Messages Plugin so that when motion is detected it sends me a text message. Problem is that the street is so close that any car driving by sets it off. Not sure how I can fine tune that so that its not setting off so many false alarms. Also how to clear the cache of recordings every day or so so that I'm not eating up hard drive space with unneeded videos.

Tried the Security Camera plugin and can't seem to figure it out.

Getting there slowly!

Posted on
Thu Jul 20, 2017 10:34 pm
kw123 offline
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Posts: 8333
Joined: May 12, 2013
Location: Dallas, TX

Re: Security with Indigo

I am still running in my Mac Pro 2008 and plan to continue until it breaks. No or little internet connection from that box. Indigo with 20 plugins and > 800 devices zwave insteon Rfxcom and security spy generates about 20-50 peak load
Still looking for some other things to load
And it also has 16 tb disk space = backup for all my files. I


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Posted on
Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:25 am
Different Computers offline
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Posts: 2533
Joined: Jan 02, 2016
Location: East Coast

Re: Security with Indigo

Fxguy wrote:
wireless camera I've setup with Cynical Security Spy Plugin ....

Tried the Security Camera plugin and can't seem to figure it out.


If you've already purchased Security Spy, I doubt the SC plugin offers more configurability, though it is cheaper than buying more licenses for more cameras if you're expanding. I got SC running after it taking a while to get my head around and would be happy to help. @bkmar1192 was also very helpful in the viewforum.php?f=239 forum.

SmartThings refugee, so happy to be on Indigo. Monterey on a base M1 Mini w/Harmony Hub, Hue, DomoPad, Dynamic URL, Device Extensions, HomeKitLink, Grafana, Plex, uniFAP, Fantastic Weather, Nanoleaf, LED Simple Effects, Bond Home, Camect.

Posted on
Fri Jul 21, 2017 9:50 am
johnpolasek offline
Posts: 911
Joined: Aug 05, 2011
Location: Aggieland, Texas

Re: Security with Indigo

I've never had any luck with using camera motion detection for alarm/alert purposes; Even if you've got it set perfectly with sharp edged zones and trigger levels, it can't tell a bee buzzing past 2 ft in front of the lens from a bad guy sneaking around in the yard... PIR motion sensors are a lot more selective, and for vehicles, buried mag sensors are the only way to go if you've got dogs, cats, deer, and so forth also roaming around.

Posted on
Fri Jul 21, 2017 8:26 pm
Fxguy offline
Posts: 153
Joined: Mar 24, 2011

Re: Security with Indigo

PIR motion sensors are a lot more selective, and for vehicles, buried mag sensors are the only way to go if you've got dogs, cats, deer, and so forth also roaming around.


So do you have the PIR sensor trigger the camera to record then? Also got my Pi today and working on getting it setup for Beacon.

Posted on
Sat Jul 22, 2017 10:29 am
kw123 offline
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Posts: 8333
Joined: May 12, 2013
Location: Dallas, TX

Re: Security with Indigo

Could you point me in the right direction for setting up PiBeacon and the use of Beacons in general ?



http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=187

start with reading #
piBeacon: 1- how does it work, read me first
piBeacon: 2- creating the SSD and configuring the rPi
then download ssd and plugin from here:
piBeacon: 3- presence monitoring download

biggest step is setting up a raspberry. once connected to network you need to tell the plugin the IPnumber and and userid/password.. 99% of there rest is handled by the plugin.

Karl

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