Alarmo: Nobody home notification to arm

We got a Konnected alarm that’s converted an old alarm into a smart one, generally the dogs don’t set sensors off but with somebody most the time being home in the day main time alarms on is for holidays ect generally to be honest

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I switch mine to armed_home while I’m/we’re in. This way I can still control if some doors open or the garage will be opened or such things. You never know, who want’s to take a look at your belongings. :wink: :slight_smile:

Thank you for the link. I’ll dig into this and see which features can be used :+1:
As you all are saying, there is a huge variety of possibilities and at the beginning it’s just kinda overwhelming and I personally don’t know where to start to achieve my goal as it also changes frequently after discovering new features :smiley:
And to be sure that I don’t get something wrong right at the beginning. I’d use the code from the linked page as an automation and then combine it for example with the action you suggested (or whatever I believe is most suitable for my needs)? So something like this:

Arming my alarm system:

trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - zone.home
    to: '0'
    for:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 2
      seconds: 0
condition:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
    state: disarmed
action:     
      entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
      code: 'my-alarm-code'  (unless I use the secret.yaml file?)
      mode: away 
      skip_delay: true
      force: true

Disarming my alarm when entering the geo zone

trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - zone.home
    to: '1'
    for:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 10
condition:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
    state: armed
action:     
      entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
      code: 'my-alarm-code'  (unless I use the secret.yaml file?)
      mode: armed_home
      skip_delay: true
      force: true

A few questions which I do have with my limited understanding:

  • Is there a better way to disarm it then saying that it switches to 1? How would it behave if both of us where to come home at the exact same time and it switches from 0 to 2? Would it still work?
  • Why is there a difference between “away” and “armed_away”?
  • Do I need to (un)check the box in the alarmo integration that I need a code to arm the system?

Sorry for all the questions…

That’s what the forum is here for! :wink: So ask, if you have questions.

To your questions:

  1. The number represents the count of persons that are currently in the home zone. This is a little wrong in the example, because as you said, it is not correct for more than one person. If you want to check for one or more persons, you’d better go with a different approach:
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id:
          - zone.home
        from: '0'
    
    This way you’re not checking for the count itself, but rather if it goes above ‘0’.
  2. The difference between away and armed_away is where you use it. away is the mode you want to set the alarm to, armed_away is the state that is given after you turned it to. It’s comporable to “close the door” (away) and “the door is closed” (armed_away).
  3. If you check the box you need a code to arm/disarm the alarm, so I’d say, yes, use it. There are cases where you don’t want to use an alarm code, but that doesn’t seem to apply to you. :slight_smile:

And one last thing: I wouldn’t disarm the alarm automatically. This is something I believe should be done “old school” by hand. There are to many failure points to disarm an alarm. In theory it sounds good, but even I don’t trust my system that much, that I’d disarm like that. If it is out of comfort or the WAF (=WifeAcceptanceFactor) is trying you hard, just use a simple button, that you hide anywhere, and let a double press on the button disarm the alarm (with code in the automation). There are numerous ways, to make that comfortable, but I’d still go with an approach, that needs at least one personal interaction with the system. For me, I have a tablet right next to the front door, and I’ll give my wife or myself 45 seconds to enter the code.

Let me know what you think! :wink:

WAF, I like that one. Seems to be somewhat the same everywhere… :smiley:
That’s a good hint with the “from”. Makes much more sense this way.
I did now order a set of small aqara switches which I can hide somewhere to disable the alarm. Did you guys just use a delay to activate the alarm within the integration?

I’m not sure what you mean… :slight_smile:

I do the arming with an automation that controls my “Going away”.

After being out and the alarm being in armed, me or my wife get back home. As we do not want the alarm siren to go off right away we need some time to disarm it before it engages. Hope this makes more sense.

Ah that. :slight_smile: You can set a delay to disarm (or arm) the alarm. It’s under Alarmo > General > Modes where you choose the mode you want to configure (the down arrow) and set an Entry delay and an Exit delay.

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Allright, thanks I did change this as well :slight_smile:
I now did some additional minor adjustments and will see what happens once my wife and I are not home and I did not arm the alarm manually. I did try to implement the condition to arm the alarm if the system is either in armed_home or disarmed. I was also thinking about using a ‘not’ condition but didn’t see a benefit here. This will most likely be also altered once I received my ‘secret’ button which I’ll use for disarming the alarm. But for now I want to ensure that the system is armed automatically every time we leave the house and it is not armed.

alias: Automatic arm when nobody home and not armed
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - zone.home
    to: "0"
    for:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 2
      seconds: 0
condition:
  alias: "Alarm disarmed or Armed_Home"
  or:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
      state: armed_home
    - condition: state
      entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
      state: disarmed
action:
  - service: alarmo.arm
    data:
      entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
      code: "??????"
      mode: away
      skip_delay: true
      force: true
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Ok I did just walk to the garage, should have taken me longer than 2 minute, but the alarm was not armed automatically. I’ll take a longer walk later and check if it works, or do you see any issue with the code I posted?
Ok it does Work :slight_smile:

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Okay, I’m kind of stuck at the part for disarming it with a hidden button. Yes the WAF is given :wink: What am I doing wrong here? When double clicking the button it’s recognized by the automation that it was triggered but the alarm stays on armed. Any ideas?

```
alias: disarm
description: “”
trigger:
- platform: device
domain: mqtt
device_id: hidden-button-id
type: click
subtype: double
discovery_id: hidden-button-id click_double
condition:
- condition: state
entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
state: armed_away
action:
- service: alarmo.disarm
data:
entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
code: "nope, not telling "
mode: armed_home
skip_delay: true
force: true
mode: single

```
Two other thoughts:
* I’m thinking also to remove the condition that it needs to be in armed_away so that it can also be disarmed from away_vacation or would that be in conflict with my thought below?
* When we are on vacation friends or family sometimes come by to water the plants e.g. is there a way that for example when it is set to armed_vacation that they’re just told a differnet way to disarm it (e.g. just one push) and that the system re-arms after like 30min or 1h?

Thanks,
Helge

Got it running using an automation which I took from the blueprint exchange:
Aqara Buttons All-In-One [Zigbee2MQTT]
Great for people like me :smiley: