Thanks to the dev(s) for the great effort in making this into official HA.
I was wondering if there was a reason for the “Disarm” button to show up on the dashboard if it doesn’t do anything. Is there a reason I’m missing for displaying it ?
I would put money towards this. Anyone else ?
does anyone actually use this as security system? my is connected to the security tower via SIA protocol, so I was told I cant use it with other service without loosing real security part of it
yeah SIA is quite limited indeed, I don’t have mine going to a company so do use this with HA, I mostly rely on the Ajax app for when I’m away and then I have HA setup to turn on lights and open the curtains when the alarm is triggered, which is not going to be the kind of protection my insurance cares about but good enough for me.
I have managed to implement full Ajax control using a Space Control and an ESP8266 using some code that is listed earlier in the thread and some simple MQTT to allow HA to keep up with all the changes. It works flawlessly!
I can, I have just moved across to ESPHome. I could take some photos. In effect, I have wired 3 pins of the ESP8266 to the internal buttons of an Ajax Space control and provided power from the 3V supply of the ESP.
I have then created a MQTT topic which the ESP subscribes to and waits for one of three commands, at which point it presses the corresponding button, arm, arm night or disarm.
I have then created two MQTT switches, armed and armed night which subscribe to another topic which details the state of the alarm from SIA so it updates the states accordingly.
I can provide the code as required, it’s a bit of a hybrid of various things I have combined online and my own creation.
2 Likes
How can I track my PREVIOUS_STATE code after alarm has been triggered?
I have nothing but periodical RP codes displayed in logs, but it does not seem to mean a previous state code.
My problem is that after alarm has been triggered it does not return to previous state, thus I cannot use the automations properly (I need to automate snapshot/clip sent by Telegram is alarm turns into STATE_ALARM_TRIGGERED state, then I need it to return to previous, e.g. “armed” state).
The RP code is just the link test, so that makes sense. So depending on which code is sent after the reset I can check the behavior. It already goes to the previous state when coming off night mode for instance.
I actually tried registering “RP” code as PREVIOUS_STATE in my case & it worked - it reverts Ajax zones to previous state. Not sure if it’s technically correct, but there are no other Codes except this one coming after STATE_ALARM_TRIGGERED.
“RP” code is being sent by Ajax quite frequently, so I decided to utilize it as reset code.
RP is sent with the frequency that you set as the ping interval, so use at your own risk!
Would be pretty cool to see this.
Im really missing the option to arm and disarm the alarm from HA.
I’ll write something up at the weekend. I want to make sure I credit the original designers. I have in effect taken two separate ideas, and in my opinion improved it to the point it is now fully integrated into HA!
4 Likes
Hopefully this will be some use to others. The total cost is approximately £50 GBP. This will allow full and total control of your Ajax Alarm harnessing the SIA intergration and MQTT. This guide assumes that you have a MQTT server and ESPHome setup.
I started by following this guide (Bitbucket) which details the process of connecting a Ajax space control to an Wemo D1, however you could also use a ESP8266 or 32 and amend the code as required. The guide requires basic soldering skills, but is fairly straightforward. The solution also removes the need to battery power the Space Control, so should be more reliable. If you really felt the need you could probably remove the reliance of the device on Wi-Fi using an ESP32 Ethernet module.
Once the Ajax Space Control is soldered you need to open ESPHome and build a device using the below code which I have created with inspiration from @fireon, who produced Arduino code. There are some changes from his initial code to ensure wider compatibility.
Obviously you will need to ensure the relevant pin is connected the the relevant area of the Space Control.
esphome:
name: ajaxcontroller
platform: ESP8266
board: nodemcuv2
# Enable logging
logger:
api:
ota:
password: "**********************" # This will be created automatically
wifi:
ssid: “*********" # Wi-Fi SSID
password: "****************" # Wi-Fi password
# Enable fallback hotspot (captive portal) in case wifi connection fails
ap:
ssid: "Ajaxcontroller Fallback Hotspot"
password: "************"
captive_portal:
mqtt:
broker: # MQTT server up
username: # your MQTT username
password: # your MQTT server password
client_id: AjaxAlarmControl # What you want to call your device in your MQTT broker
topic_prefix: ajax/alarm/control
on_message:
- topic: ajax/alarm
payload: arm_zone1
qos: 1
then:
- switch.turn_on: arm
- topic: ajax/alarm
payload: disarm_zone1
qos: 1
then:
- switch.turn_on: disarm
- topic: ajax/alarm
payload: arm_zone1_night
qos: 1
then:
- switch.turn_on: arm_night
switch:
- platform: gpio
pin:
number: D2
inverted: true
id: "disarm"
on_turn_on:
- delay: 300ms
- switch.turn_off: disarm
- platform: gpio
pin:
number: D6
inverted: true
id: "arm"
on_turn_on:
- delay: 300ms
- switch.turn_off: arm
- platform: gpio
pin:
number: D7
inverted: true
id: "arm_night"
on_turn_on:
- delay: 300ms
- switch.turn_off: arm_night
Once uploaded you will in effect have a device on your network that will arm, arm night mode and disarm Ajax when the correct MQTT payload is received.
The next stage is to setup the MQTT alarm intergration within HA. This is setup with config.yaml, below is the code.
mqtt:
alarm_control_panel:
state_topic: ajax/alarmstate
command_topic: ajax/alarm
payload_arm_away: arm_zone1
payload_arm_night: arm_zone1_night
payload_disarm: disarm_zone1
qos: 1
Once added, restart HA. Please note do not set the MQTT alarm to retain, as due to a design limitation it will retain all messages, not just the state messages, meaning if your ESP device restarted it would react on the last payload on the command topic. The MQTT alarm intergration listens on the state topic to set its state, and uses the command topic to send a payload to arm which the ESP responds to.
At this point you now have ability to arm and disarm your Ajax alarm from within HA, however it would be possible for HA to fall out of sync with Ajax if the alarm is set locally using the keypad or Ajax app, or HA is restarted (because we can’t use the retained message feature with the MQTT alarm system). This is where SIA comes in. Assuming you are using arm, arm night and disarm you will to produce three automations, which are below -
Automation for if the alarm is armed locally -
alias: (Alarm) Alarm Automation Armed Locally
description: ''
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: ******** #change this to your SIA entity that reports your alarm state
to: armed_away
- platform: mqtt
topic: ajax/alarm
payload: arm_zone1
condition: []
action:
- delay:
hours: 0
minutes: 0
seconds: 5
milliseconds: 0
- service: mqtt.publish
data:
topic: ajax/alarmstate
qos: '1'
retain: true
payload: armed_away
mode: single
Automation if night mode is armed locally -
alias: (Alarm) Alarm Automation Night Locally
description: ''
trigger:
- platform: state
to: armed_night
entity_id: ******** #change this to your SIA entity that reports your alarm state
- platform: mqtt
topic: ajax/alarm
payload: arm_zone1_night
condition: []
action:
- delay:
hours: 0
minutes: 0
seconds: 5
milliseconds: 0
- service: mqtt.publish
data:
topic: ajax/alarmstate
qos: '1'
retain: true
payload: armed_night
mode: single
Automation if alarm is disarmed locally -
alias: '(Alarm) Alarm Night Automation Disarmed Locally '
description: ''
trigger:
- platform: state
to: disarmed
entity_id: ******** #change this to your SIA entity that reports your alarm state
- platform: mqtt
topic: ajax/alarm
payload: disarm_zone1
condition: []
action:
- delay:
hours: 0
minutes: 0
seconds: 5
milliseconds: 0
- service: mqtt.publish
data:
topic: ajax/alarmstate
qos: '1'
payload: disarmed
retain: true
mode: single
What these three automations do in effect is watch the SIA intergration and the MQTT state topic, if a state change is recorded it waits 5 seconds and then publishes a retained MQTT message to ensure that the alarm state survives restarts and the MQTT alarm panel is up to date with any local changes to Ajax.
From a security perspective I would considering putting the ESP on an none external facing VLAN.
Once all setup you can then use the MQTT alarm to arm and disarm your Ajax based on your presence, I personally set it to arm when I leave, but leave it to me to disarm when I return home. You can also use the alarm card using the below.
type: alarm-panel
states:
- arm_away
- arm_night
entity: alarm_control_panel.mqtt_alarm
name: House Alarm
Apologies it’s a long write up, not sure if I should put this on its own Repo. If people find it useful I will. @kernest let me know how you get on.
@eavanvalkenburg any issues with this post let me know, appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into SIA.
11 Likes
This looks awesome, thanks for sharing, I’m thinking about doing this now as well! One additional thought, if you add something like this:
async def async_alarm_disarm(self, code: str | None = None) -> None:
"""Send disarm command."""
self.hass.bus.async_fire(
event_type=SIA_EVENT.format(self._port, event.account),
event_data={"type": "disarm"},
)
and similar functions for the arm and arm_night, and probably some small tweaks in the rest of the code here: sia/alarm_control_panel.py at master · eavanvalkenburg/sia (github.com).
Then you can add automations on those events to call the ESP through MQTT, then you don’t need the MQTT entities (and maybe not even MQTT, just direct to ESP, perhaps?), but in any case then the SIA entity does all of the work in displaying status etc!
My coding abilities are fairly limited, but i could definitely see the advantages of using the ESPHome API and your control panel, which would reduce the need for the additional automations, I just don’t have the knowledge to achieve it 
Hi there, newbie to Ajax, well I dont have it yet Im toying up between Ajax and Texecom.
With Ajax, from within HA the only thing Im interested in is if the alarm is set or not, from what I can tell this can be done with the SIA component and its quite stable (right?).
Now second question, if I have my alarm monitored by a monitoring company , am i correct in saying I wont be able to detect the state changes?
thanks
There is no way without some further work (see my above post) to arm and disarm Ajax within HA. The SIA intergration is purely a listening protocol that reports state changes.
Ajax only supports one SIA Monitoring Station at a time, so if you pay a provider you couldn’t then also use the integration.
It depends on how the alarm monitoring company connects, if they use the SIA protocol then that means you can’t also use HA for the status.
1 Like
thanks guys,
I probably wont go for monitoring to start with but I want to make sure I have the option later…
In my old Guardsec system there was a board pin I put an opto isolator to , it worked well and told me alarm set/unset… Looking at pictures of the ajax board I dont think thats viable…
The only other solution I can think of is to buy a ajax smart socket, add a ESP to it, when its powered, alarm=on, not powered alarm=off… bit of an expensive hack as I think each plug is like €80 but it would work