Shed door alerting

[notta3d]

I have a shed about 130' from my house that was recently broken into. I just added a door sensor to the shed door and setup an email alert when the door opens so I can hopefully flash a spotlight on them or something to make them run away before they take anything. The only problem is that I don't always look at my phone so I could easily miss it. What is the the recommended program for alerting on something like this? I also have a back door in my garage that I want to do the same thing. Do you flash the lights in the house on and off to alert? Are there any written programs for this? I mainly just have Insteon devices to work with here.

 

Thanks

[lilyoyo1]

34 minutes ago, notta3d said:

I have a shed about 130' from my house that was recently broken into. I just added a door sensor to the shed door and setup an email alert when the door opens so I can hopefully flash a spotlight on them or something to make them run away before they take anything. The only problem is that I don't always look at my phone so I could easily miss it. What is the the recommended program for alerting on something like this? I also have a back door in my garage that I want to do the same thing. Do you flash the lights in the house on and off to alert? Are there any written programs for this? I mainly just have Insteon devices to work with here.

 

Thanks

I would get some type of siren to put in the house and shed which would go off when the door is open. If you're asleep you may not notice the flash but would hear the siren. One in the unit as well would potentially scare them off too as they would hear it and assume someone else did too. 

[tmorse305]

47 minutes ago, notta3d said:

I have a shed about 130' from my house that was recently broken into. I just added a door sensor to the shed door and setup an email alert when the door opens so I can hopefully flash a spotlight on them or something to make them run away before they take anything. The only problem is that I don't always look at my phone so I could easily miss it. What is the the recommended program for alerting on something like this? I also have a back door in my garage that I want to do the same thing. Do you flash the lights in the house on and off to alert? Are there any written programs for this? I mainly just have Insteon devices to work with here.

 

Thanks

Is the door sensor Insteon as well?  Is the door sensor available in your ISY or is the email being sent to you some other way?  If you have outside spot lights that hit the shed, then you could set those off when the door is opened.  Tell us a little more about your setup.

[MrBill]

In my system, I use a program that turns on the barn lights inside and out when the door opens after sunset, however after a certain time they won't turn off when the door closes, they stay on until manually reset.   If it's after the specific time, it also rings the back doorbell 3 times, 5 seconds apart.  The gates coming into the yard will also ring the back doorbell once if opened between sunset to sunrise.  

[Teken]

This gets more aggressive if they pass the breach line . . .

Perimeter_Motion_Detected_5.wav

[notta3d]

Thanks guys. Yes I have an Insteon Open Door Sensor with the ISY. I was concerned about the distance but the sensor is working at 130'. 150 is the max range for a sensor to the ISY correct? Good point about the flashing lights don't help when you're a sleep. Does Insteon make a siren? Unfortunately I don't have any floodlights out back. Any that you guys can recommend that can be used in an ISY program? I was thinking of getting something like the Guardline perimeter system which seems pretty nice. That bad thing is it's a stand alone system and doesn't have any integration with other systems. Thanks.

[Teken]

On 6/19/2020 at 10:43 AM, notta3d said:

Thanks guys. Yes I have an Insteon Open Door Sensor with the ISY. I was concerned about the distance but the sensor is working at 130'. 150 is the max range for a sensor to the ISY correct? Good point about the flashing lights don't help when you're a sleep. Does Insteon make a siren? Unfortunately I don't have any floodlights out back. Any that you guys can recommend that can be used in an ISY program? I was thinking of getting something like the Guardline perimeter system which seems pretty nice. That bad thing is it's a stand alone system and doesn't have any integration with other systems. Thanks.

The Insteon 2868-222 can be configured for either siren or chime: https://www.smarthome.com/collections/insteon-security/products/insteon-siren-2868-222 Almost any flood light can be used so long as it doesn't use dual bright technology. Almost everyone today who tries to integrate with Insteon / 3rd party flood lights use the Micro 2443-222 or 2442-222 when space is limited. In the past many of us installed the 2475SDB (ILL) Insteon Inline Linc relay or dimmer version when the Micro module wasn't available and space wasn't a limiting factor.

[smokegrub]

I have my bedroom light flash several times and a buzzlinc (Stu's invention) sound off in my bedroom as an alert for a water leak or a door opening. Definitely gets my attention.

[Teken]

I have my bedroom light flash several times and a buzzlinc (Stu's invention) sound off in my bedroom as an alert for a water leak or a door opening. Definitely gets my attention.

I am still using this fantastic solution this very day from our dear friend Stu!




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[apostolakisl]

You can make your Insteon light switches inside the house "chirp".  I have the blue iris node server and programmed blue iris to trigger when an object travels up my driveway.  So now I hear "chirp, chirp, chirp" every time someone comes up the driveway.  Then I can meet the Amazon guy at the door.  Anyway, you can have an Insteon door sensor trigger ISY to make your light switches inside go chirp chirp chirp if you like.  Unless you are in a dead sleep, it should wake you up.  And it isn't as jarring as an actual siren would be.  Also, it would not be heard by someone breaking into your shed.  So you can catch them red-handed, if indeed that is what you want.  If you would rather scare them away, program a bunch of lights that are visible from the shed to turn on or blink.  If you are more of the shotgun kind of guy, do the chirp chirp chirp and have some fun.

[tmorse305]

If you have an Alexa within earshot you could have it say "Shed door opened" when the breach occurs.

[notta3d]

10 hours ago, tmorse305 said:

If you have an Alexa within earshot you could have it say "Shed door opened" when the breach occurs.

I do. This sounds like the way to go for me. I never signed up for the ISY Portal because to be honest the only instructions I have ever seen were on a YouTube video from like 2016. As matter of fact I just checked under the ISY Portal and the HowTo section and nothing is standing out on how to do the setup. I love the ISY, but I just wish there more how-to tutorials. What is amazing is there are very little YouTube videos on the ISY. I do better following videos No reason to re-invent the wheel when someone else has already done it. Anyway, I appreciate everyone's input and I'll look around to see how to get the ISY Portal up and running since I do think that would be the best way to alert me. Thanks.

[larryllix]

2 hours ago, notta3d said:

I do. This sounds like the way to go for me. I never signed up for the ISY Portal because to be honest the only instructions I have ever seen were on a YouTube video from like 2016. As matter of fact I just checked under the ISY Portal and the HowTo section and nothing is standing out on how to do the setup. I love the ISY, but I just wish there more how-to tutorials. What is amazing is there are very little YouTube videos on the ISY. I do better following videos No reason to re-invent the wheel when someone else has already done it. Anyway, I appreciate everyone's input and I'll look around to see how to get the ISY Portal up and running since I do think that would be the best way to alert me. Thanks.

That would be nice but like all the other high-tech industry, they would ave to produce a new video every week or two.

[apostolakisl]

3 hours ago, notta3d said:

I do. This sounds like the way to go for me. I never signed up for the ISY Portal because to be honest the only instructions I have ever seen were on a YouTube video from like 2016. As matter of fact I just checked under the ISY Portal and the HowTo section and nothing is standing out on how to do the setup. I love the ISY, but I just wish there more how-to tutorials. What is amazing is there are very little YouTube videos on the ISY. I do better following videos No reason to re-invent the wheel when someone else has already done it. Anyway, I appreciate everyone's input and I'll look around to see how to get the ISY Portal up and running since I do think that would be the best way to alert me. Thanks.

regarding the portal, I don't really think anything has changed as far as setting it up since its inception.  The portal is just a pathway to your ISY from the internet that doesn't require opening ports on your firewall.  You don't need the portal at all if you are willing to open ports.  Most folks would rather not do that.  The portal also facilitates using google home and amazon alexa.  These two things do keep changing in the sense that more functionality gets added.

Regarding using Amazon to say "shed open" or whatever.  That is fine and all.  But unless you have one in every room, you are likely to not hear it.  The "chirp chirp chirp" is heard everywhere (assuming you have switches all over the house) and is relatively innocuous.  You can do both of course.

[notta3d]

Quote

Regarding using Amazon to say "shed open" or whatever.  That is fine and all.  But unless you have one in every room, you are likely to not hear it.  The "chirp chirp chirp" is heard everywhere (assuming you have switches all over the house) and is relatively innocuous.  You can do both of course.

That makes sense. Yes I would rather not like to open ports on my router. I have security camera's that I don't view from the outside because I don't want to open the required ports.

2 questions if you don't mind. Do you have the link to the chirp, chirp thread on how to achieve this?

Secondly, is there a forum post on new users and the ISY Portal? I looked and I can't believe that's not pinned at the top.

Thanks.

[apostolakisl]

Just now, notta3d said:

That makes sense. Yes I would rather not like to open ports on my router. I have security camera's that I don't view from the outside because I don't want to open the required ports.

2 questions if you don't mind. Do you have the link to the chirp, chirp thread on how to achieve this?

Secondly, is there a forum post on new users and the ISY Portal? I looked and I can't believe that's not pinned at the top.

Thanks.

OK, so it is listed on ISY as "beep", but the sound the switch actually makes is much more closely described as "chirp".  It is just one of the many options for a switch, such as on/off/fast on/fast off/beep/etc. available in a program.  In other words, just write a program and instead of commanding a light to turn on, you command it to beep.  And if you want "chirp chirp chirp", you put three lines of code back to back.

Not sure about new users and the portal on the forum.  But if you just go to my.isy.io  and sign up for a new account, I think it walks you through.

[notta3d]

Sounds easy enough. Thanks for the help.

[apostolakisl]

3 minutes ago, notta3d said:

Sounds easy enough. Thanks for the help.

no problem.  And regarding cameras, the problem with portals is the data has to go through the portal server.  So there aren't really any low costs way to do this since the server needs tons of bandwidth for video.  Consider getting yourself a ubiquiti usg (router) which has a very simple VPN configuration.  Then you can vpn into your home network to view your cameras.  VPN doesn't work for ISY since many of the devices you want to connect will not be able to establish a vpn connection first (like Amazon).  Though if the only thing you wanted to do was connect a phone app to ISY, you could set your phone up with VPN, then connect your phone to vpn first followed by opening your phone app.  But this is just kind of cumbersome.  

[ewind]

In the ISY console the siren shows up with arm & trigger elements but I do not see a way to send "chime" vs. "siren" command from ISY program. Is this possible?

[Whitehambone]

@ewind. I don't think the ISY fully supports the Insteon Siren.  I think the best you can do for a chime is make it Beep at the highest level (255).

[Brian H]

If the Siren is in a scene. You can set how it operates in that scene. In the Scenes list of devices in it. Not the main Administrative Console list.

The Siren Modules interfacing information. Was one of the modules Smarthome didn't give UDI little or no information. I understand they had to reverse engineer how it works. I think that it may not have every feature implemented correctly.

[ewind]

Thanks @Brian H indeed the function exists when sirens are in a scene. Theoretically I can have 2 scenes, 1 where they all siren, and 1 where they all chime! Perfecto! who knew

[Brian H]

Glad to see you have had good results. Took me awhile to discover this myself.

Mine are real early hardware revisions 4.5 and 4.6 Sirens . Long before ISY V5 firmware was released to support them. So I was not too sure if things changed if the presently sold Sirens have a later firmware.