Cheap solution for Alarm Sirens with battery backup

That’s purely so that I don’t wake up the neighbours if/when I come home very late and disarm the alarm. I also want the alarm to flash every so often so it does not look like a dummy box, and that’s the only mode that I found that offers this :wink:

Yes yes I got it, and is actually cool to have a siren flash red at night ALL THE TIME (although need to ask wife and neighbours what they think though lol)

I am wondering why you got the PANIC and ARMED_HOME, while me doing as you did I got PANIC and DISARM

Mmhh with no battery in the F8 if I give 3,3V to the cables nothing happens (if the battery is there and I give 3,3V to the cables then the siren sounds PANIC mode) … well I guess I stop here, I accomplished my goal of making the Siren sound.

Thanks for the help

1 Like

That took a while to read, but this is what i discovered with my F8 transmitter.

I have mine cut, and connected to GPIO pins on my RP3.

If you took the cut wires, and just touched and released, this sends like a “arming” tone, not the siren.
I believe this is similar to what pressing the internal button does.

To keep the siren on, the wires must stay touching, and close the circuit. Once they are disconnected, the siren is turned off.

So, using this system, you should be able to use your sonoff to detect the signals sent by the F8 by connecting the wires (and keep them connected) for the [trigger signal], and then disconnect the wires for the [disable trigger signal].

Hope that made sense.

Hi, could you please tell me more about the limit switch, I see soooo many models online I wish to buy the one that fits the best in the J008. Like these are ok?

https://www.ebay.it/itm/10PC-V-153-1C25-Limit-Switch-Long-Straight-Hinge-Lever-Type-SPDT-Micro-Switch-PQ/233042302871?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140423084956%26meid%3De4e16fdff238428986f5b8f57e76f7fd%26pid%3D100033%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D333057794688%26itm%3D233042302871&_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042

yes this is exactly what I did. The whole confusion was the terminology TRIGGER used also in the J008 manual: to me trigger is the button that TRIGGERS the alarm (without stopping), while in reality is the code that STOPS the siren .

One smaller doubt: you connect the positive to 3,3V or 5V of the raspberry?

I can’t remember actually, and I’ve since disconnected it.

Pretty sure I tested the F8 with just a power adapter that was 3v and it worked, so pretty sure I connected it to 3.3v.

Ok I will just install it in a place difficult to tamper. Thanks anyway

When listening for the RF signal (Using the Sonoff RF Gateway) The codes kept changing.
I was thinking I had to hack apart the remote and put relays to trigger the siren.
@onkytonk

I have mine cut, and connected to GPIO pins on my RP3.

If you took the cut wires, and just touched and released, this sends like a “arming” tone, not the siren.
I believe this is similar to what pressing the internal button does.

Could you give some more detail please? I have the little transmitted as well as a remote though I dont know what it actually does or where to connect.

Are you using a RPi?
If so, you can utilise its GPIO to trigger other devices, relays, etc.
Basically I cut off the 3.5mm jack that’s on the transmitter and connected it directly to the gpio pin on the RPi.
I added a GPIO switch in HA, which I can toggle, or add to any automations to trigger the transmitter, and therefore trigger the alarm.

Have a read here: https://www.home-assistant.io/components/rpi_gpio/

I’ve actually got a Kerui alarm system including this outside alarm and keyfobs and changing over to HA/node red as my alarm I saw this post as I am looking to connect up a outside alarm. Too bad for me I just moved off my RPi 2 weeks ago as it was getting to slow and moved to VirtualBox VM on my PC now I can’t just easily use my old siren and keyfob.

I spoke to soon. I just discovered Sonoff RF bridge looks like my savour bought one off ebay for $16AUD just now. Drzzz does vid on flashing with tasmota too which is bonus.

It can take infinite RF inputs from 433mhz but only send 16 outputs. Joins Wifi network so you can access it from with HA and node red. Perfection :partying_face:

Hey.
I struggled to get my sonoff RF to work with the kerui remote. I actually had a lot of issues with the Sonoff RF with not detecting many of my RF433 devices. Even after I flashed it to tasmota.
I had success with the broadlink RM pro.
Other option, is using an ESP board with the wired transmitter.

Cool thanks for the heads up. I can see ESP stuff is making big hit with HA I have bit gone down that rabbit hole yet as was trying to master the stuff I got without diversifying again, but looks like there is some good stuff happening with ESP.

EDIT 20/6/2019
Got my Sonoff RF and flashed with Tasmota so far so good read all codes of 433mhz devices and made note of the codes for when I need them in the future.

I’m about to move off my RPi to a PC with Hassio running on a VM. So I will also need to look for another solution.
I want my system to be able to run off my UPS too. Which means multiple items plugged into that.
PC, broadlink Rm pro and router to run hassio and alarm. But my cctv is also plugged into it.
Need to check how much more power the PC will consume over the RPi, so I can make sure I have sufficient backup battery time.

I kept putting it off but happy I did it now. I looked at NUCs and other options to run standalone, but as my main PC runs 24/7/365 which I run my IP CCTV cameras (being happily trialling Sighthound.com thumbs up) and Plex. I had Evo 860 SSD and 3Gen i5 14GBRAM the i5 was running quiet high usage with my previous VMS CCTV software and 4 cameras and when I added Oracle VM to it the i5 was able to keep up. I went on ebay bought the fastest i7 that was compatible with my board and the hyperthreading that comes with i7 but not the i5 made a gigantic difference at smashing through the threads nearly doubling the speed of the computer.

As far as UPS goes I tried this a few years ago and you need a pretty big battery to run your PC and modem, router the UPS I bought gave me about 5 minutes. I did think of maybe switching out the battery with a gel battery like they have in golf carts but in essence it hasn’t been up on my priority list.

I have got my Kerui siren working now with HA, NodeRed and Sonoff RF using my Virtual Machine (no RPi) install. Let me show you my setup :partying_face:

To sound and disarm the siren via HA via Sonoff RF you need to bind something with buttons which will transmit the Trigger and Stop codes to the siren which you can then see via the Sonoff RF Tasmosta console. You can only bind 1 transmitting device to the siren the cheapest way is to buy a Kerui 4 button keyfob (see @lolouk44 notes above Feb 12th 2019) .
image

However if you want practical (family friendly) I recommend the Kerui K16 wall mount keypad with RFiD keytags. This will fire RF codes to the siren once you binded it to the siren that you can capture and then use in NodeRed. It has RFiD tags so when you walk in the door you can turn off your HA alarm at the swipe of a tag (it fires RF code when disarmed which you can capture with Sonoff RF and flow into NodeRed through the MQTT input).
KERUI-K16-Wireless-RFID-Touch-Keyboard-Keypad-Home

Once you get your hands on the keyfob or K16 you need to bind it the Siren (search youtube).

Then you need to flash your Sonoff RF with tasmota see drzzz youtube video.

Once flashed you can now start reading 433Mhz RF codes. Hopefully you have already got to the point where using your 4 button keypad or K16 you can sound the siren and disarm it too. Coz if you passed that step in the Sonoff RF Tasmota console you need to press those buttons and make a note of the codes which are you going to use in NodeRed in a minute or two.

Now before we can go to NodeRed you need to get your Sonoff RF seen in HA as an entity to they can communicate with each other.
In HA Configurator > Configuation.yaml or whatever yaml file you want to add the mqtt settings for it are I put it in my switch.yaml file for now (maybe I might move it my alarm folder later. Either way enter this:

  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Outdoor Siren"
    command_topic: cmnd/RF_Bridge/RFCODE
    availability_topic: "tele/RF_Bridge/LWT"
    payload_available: "Online"
    payload_not_available: "Offline"
    payload_on: "#0414025"
    payload_off: "#0414026"
    optimistic: true

I don’t think the payload_on, payload_off are really relevant as I copy and pasted the code from someone else and didn’t even update their RF codes to my own and it hasn’t made a difference. It’s mainly the first 4 lines that will make or break your connection. Restart HASS :grinning: …HA crashed on restart, reinstall from backup :unamused: i recommend hass.io google drive backup will save your but from time to time :crazy_face:
Screenshot_4

Now if you look in the Developer Tools > States you should be able to see the Outdoor Siren has been added and you are ready to head into NodeRed.

I have a seperate Flow for my Alarm and the foundation of it I used from James Mcarthy’s


Using some code from this thread/post I added in an MQTT out and a CHANGE to my Flow. The CHANGE receives whatever payload is coming in and lets you change the output (usually on or off) to your own payload (the RF code) which you can then pass over to the MQTT output to fire through the MQTT broker, into Sonoff RF which fires the code into the Air for the Kerui Siren to read and act upon.


The CHANGE received an ON message from the TRIGGER and sends the RF code that I captured from the Kerui Keypad for sounding the alarm to the MQTT output.


MQTT output (to MQTT broker this sets the topic and the RF code payload comes from the CHANGE).

2 Likes

thanks for sharing your setup - can I just buy the k16 keypad and bind to a siren, or do i need an alarm system too?

You can just buy the K16 pad and bind it to the siren.

1 Like

Awesome work!
I just bought more Kerui gear to set up - Using their Pet immune PIR, solar siren and W193 panel.
I haven’t integrated into HA yet, but do you know when using RFID tags - do different tags send out a different RF signal, or once scanned, does the K16 (or whatever main unit) send out a generic “disarm” RF signal?