Not sure if it’s possible, but wondering if we could maybe get support for Aico devices, that include Smoke/Heat/Multi-Sensor Alarms?
I have a few devices installed at my property, but not really sure what wireless technology it uses. I believe it some sort of Radio frequency as each sensor alarms are wirelessly paired and communicating with each other using AudioLink+ technology. It can be used with an smartphone app called ‘SmartLink’.
Models:
Many thanks
As I understand it from the Aico website AudioLink+ works via a true audio signal: the beeps that you hear when receiving the data on your smartphone. So it works via the smartphone microphone.
I suppose it will not be easy to add support for the AudioLink+ technology to Home Assistant.
However, from the Aico website I also understand that it is possible to add an Ei3000MRF module to your detectors so that these can communicate via a 433 MHz signal, but that’s optional. So do your detectors have these RF modules?
I do have some Ei146RF smoke detectors, and these come with an 433 MHz RF module by default. These detectors work together via the RF signal, such that these all will give an alarm when one detects smoke.
I do have a RFXCom RFXtrx device that works via 433 MHz as well, and recently I found out that I can see all my smoke detectors in Home Assistant ( and a lot of my neighbors smoke detectors as well…). In Home Assistant these smoke detectors are recognized as “RM174RF” smoke detectors:
So a vote from me to add support for the Ei Electronics devices.
Using the Aico Ei1000G gateway, devices and alerts are posted to the ‘cloud’ and are available via the HomeLINK api (rest and mqtt). Not local, but reasonably fully featured.
I have a great preference for direct support from Home Assistant.
Not only because such a gateway is too expensive for a normal household application with just a few smoke detectors, but above all because I want to stay off the cloud as much as possible and do everything local.
Hopefully you can find someone to do it for you. I’m afraid I don’t have those devices, so can’t have a look at it.
Are there any less technical ways of setting this up in HA like a hass integration?
With the gateway I mentioned, I hope so in the future.
I’ve been looking at these, spotted this RadioLINK to relay module: Ei428 RadioLINK Relay Module | Aico
Looks like the ideal way to hook up to HA - possibly via an ESP module.
I’ve just interfaced mine using the Ei413 connected to an ESP32, also used a Sim800l to send SMS when activated.
If anyone is interested I have created an integration to do a cloud based linkup of Aico HomeLINk to HA.
I know many people prefer to stay local in which case the relay module is likely the best way for you.
If you are happy with a cloud based integration, then this will provide you a binary sensor for each of your devices tell you whether it is alarmed or not (plus some extra info), plus sensors for last tested date and replace by date. Also event entities for mqtt events sent my HomeLINK.
The integration does not yet support the Aico environment sensors as yet (Ei1020 and Ei1025), but I hope to have that done by Christmas when I have one of the devices installed.
You do need to have installed an Ei1000G gateway, and have a landlord account on the HomeLINK dashboard for this to work.
It’s not available on HACS default as yet, it needs to be added as a custom repository, but I have submitted the PR to be added to default
If you are interested, have a look here - GitHub - RogerSelwyn/AICO_HomeLINK: Home Assistant AICO HomeLINK Integration
It’s a new integration which to some extent I am reverse engineering the data, with some help from HomeLINK, so it probably isn’t 100% yet, but a long way there.
Happy to report that I have this working with two Ei3018 CO alarms
Thanks for letting me know. You probably haven’t setup MQTT, but for me at least that is broken at the moment. I am in contact with the Aico HomeLINK team to try and resolve.
Hi Roger, I’ve been using your integration for a few weeks now, and it’s great, thank you for putting it together.
I have the HomeLINK MQTT working, but I’m trying to set up the MQTT so that alerts can be delivered to HA faster than the 30sec standard time.
I have Mosquitto broker running for various things, so happy to use this. I’ve tried following the instructions provided, and have created the bridge config file using the following:
connection homelink
address conduit.live.homelync.io:8883
remote_username externalmqtt:redacted-mqtt
remote_password obscurepassword
topic redacted/# in 0
bridge_capath /etc/ssl/certs/
local_clientid redacted_obscure
remote_clientid redacted_obscure
In the Mosquotto log, I am getting:
2024-02-21 11:02:55: Connecting bridge homelink (conduit.live.homelync.io:8883)
2024-02-21 11:02:56: Client redacted_obscure closed its connection.
Should the local client ID and remote client ID be the same?
Many thanks,
Gareth
This is kind of what I hate about the default mosquito in HA, because it almost gives no explanation of why something failed. I personally use EMQX (also available as an add-on) which is much more informative.
Things to be sure of:-
I’m not sure which client_id is relevant, emqx doesn’t make it clear and I’m not clever enough on MQTT. I would try different combinations and see what works.
You may need to add the following to your config. I’m not sure what the mosquito broker defaults to, but HomeLINK doesn’t currently support v5:-
bridge_protocol_version mqttv311.
I’ll try and configure it up on another broker I’ve got to check it.
Hi, thanks for getting back to me.
I only use mosquitto as I was already using it for Zigbee2mqtt, GivTCP and for another bridge to gather my smart meter data.
Yup, topic is topic “gareth_jones/# in 0”
client_id is “gareth_jones_xxxxxxxxxx”.
I’ve added the protocol version, but reeading online Mosquitto defaults to mqttv311 anyway, but still no joy.
If i can be of any assistance in debugging, happy to help! There is a debug option in mosquitto, which vastly increases the amount of info in the log, but so much so that it disappears off the screen in the log tab too quickly. Unsure where Mosquitto stores log file TBH.
I installed MQTTX to do a test on the config (as advised by Homelink), but it wouldn’t import the download file from Homelink, says some data is missing.
I’ve spent a good hour to so trying to get the Eclipse MQTT broker to connect to HomeLINK. I can get it to get protocol errors (if I point at an invalid cert path), or various other things. I can’t get it to connect at all. I have no problems with EMQX or with MQTT Explorer.
I’d suggest, you use the options in the config of the integration to go straight to the HomeLINK MQTT server, it just requires you to input your username/password/client_id/topic and it should work. You just won’t get them into the HA broker.
I’ve just noticed that you said you have the HomeLINK MQTT working. You won’t get it any faster by using the HA broker. All you’re doing is telling the HA broker to fetch from the HomeLINK broker, which adds an extra step. I provided choices because I figured some people might have problems configuring the standard HA broker (like you have), and others (such as me) want all my MQTT in one place.
Alerts from HomeLINK always take a little while to come through because of the way the alert routes from alarm → gateway → home link internal system → homelink mqtt broker. I suspect that biggest delay in there is the in house element (alarm/gateway) which nothing here can improve.
If you can point me at the debug option. I’m not using it via the add-on, but I may be able to find the option in my straight docker install.
Hi, thank you for checking.
I say I have the Homelink MQTT working, I think I do, but there isn’t any way to check (as, if i’m not mistaken, the integration works even without configuring MQTT? How do I know? 
)
The debug option is just in the config for the addon, bottom right in this screenshot.
You would get a warning in the logs, if the HomeLINK MQTT was not working (assuming you have added your credentials/etc).
You can also enable the event sensors, and if you get anything on those, then it is definitely working since that data only comes via MQTT. You should get a GATEWAY_CHECK_IN event for your gateway every few hours. Pretty much any other device you won’t see any events unless something happens. That said, if something happens (like a head removal), then you will get both an event and an alert via MQTT.
On debugging, I imagine it is pagefuls of stuff for you because you have a load of ZigBee sensors sending lots of stuff. The actual connection itself doesn’t seem to give much detail, I think there is more at the server end, which of course we don’t have access to. I think it needs someone who knows how to use Eclipse better than me to figure it out.
If you want to test any MQTT stuff, I’d recommend MQTT Explorer. Pretty sure it is available on Windows, but I use it on Mac.
