SimpliSafe with HA

Hardware
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@G2740, interesting update re: the sale of SS. If prices go up, or if the ability to integrate with HA goes away, that will suck. I’m already fearing a do-over of Chamberlain where they’ll try to charge for smart home integration. I guess time will tell.

I’ve read about Noonlight in this forum which allows you to use your existing hardware and HA to build your own alarm system and trigger an alarm through the Noonlight monitoring service. I think that’ll be my next system of monitoring if/when HA and SS divorce. There’s an integration in HACS for Noonlight. It appears their service is only $9.99/mo.

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@Pilotbum @Chuck_Crisler

I agree with @Pilotbum Simplisafe locks almost everything down, I don’t use monitoring myself, had it about 6 months, when no call came on a false alarm, I dropped it like a hot potato. terms & conditions lol.

I can call 911 faster myself.

A hacky way to implement it is using using a smart wifi switch like a Switchbot, Switchbot Smart Switch Button Pusher (Bluetooth) – Fingerbot for Rocker Switch/One-Way Buttons, App Timer Control, No Wiring, Optional Hub Required for Voice/Remote, White: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

This button pusher might press a dedicated Simplisafe Panic button or maybe even a keypad panic button, they must be held 2 seconds I think. The Switchbot is controllable in HAOS.

The downside is pressing a panic button may dispatch emergency services if you miss the call or don’t cancel via text message, $fines$ if a false alarm in some locales.

I dont think, but am uncertain since I don’t have an SS temp sensor, that if triggered it only generates calls and text, no dispatch. :thinking:

Since it’s not a human life critical, plant life perhaps, its probably best to use a good freeze/temp sensors in HAOS, send yourself notifications, turn on a siren or smart lights as desired.

I also still arm and disarm Simplisafe as a backup to Alarmo, both use via geofenceing automations to do that or timing schedules, sunrise, sunset etc.

HAOS equals open and practically anything is possible, Simplisafe equals closed and not much automation available.

Their sensors might or could be used for non critical automations, lower curtains at sunset etc.

But, since I have parallel Zigbee sensors on all my doors and windows I only automated arming and disarming SS. Zwave sensors could also be used and might be more hack resistant than Zigbee, a bit more money.

As @Pilotbum mentioned, Noonlight monitoring can be integrated with HAOS alarm systems, my choice, Alarmo. It is about $10 per month, it has no cellular backup if thats important, it is WiFi. I don’t have it, can’t vouch.

I loaded @bachya integration way back 1.5 years ago probably, he does great work.

I’ll use it as long as my Simplisafe hardware functions as backup.

Whether or what the new owner of Simplisafe, GTCR does with Simplisafe is unknown. I do know that they also own or bought two of ADTs systems and absorbed it into Everon Security.

Time will tell, I self montior, my Home Assistant has been extremely reliable, even though I play in HAOS Beta. lol

Since I’m retired, It keeps my gray matter active building automations and tweaking stuff.

The latest, whole home occupancy.

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There are HAOS gadgets to control your garage doors if Chamberlain goes rogue, you can probably get around it.

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@G2740 Thank you for the reply. I am still learning about HA. I briefly looked into HA notifications and didn’t see anything effective. My concern is that a notification to my phone wouldn’t wake me at night. A siren, on the other hand, just might work. Thank you for the suggestion. Also, the SS freeze/over temp alarm does not result in dispatch, only an automated phone call. It has happened a time or 2.

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I just picked up a Zooz Zwave Zse50 siren for any alarms, about $50, haven’t tested it yet, tiny little thing plugs into a receptacle, has 25 sounds built in & custom sounds can be added within storage limitations.

I also use a custom app via GitHub that on trigger of any alarm, it triggers a task in my Tasker app in my Samsung phone, which then plays a loud siren sound thru my Sony XB100 bluetooth speaker which auto connects at 10PM.

In addition, SS has its base siren and I have their remote siren if it ever triggers, remote siren is quite loud.

And, Alarmo can use Ring V2 keypads in HAOS and I have two of those and they have small sirens.:rofl:

I’m covered for noise. lol Maybe I’ll make the Zigbee smart lights blink in unison, red then blue, :thinking::grin:

Good luck!

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@Chuck_Crisler another option for an alarm to wake you or scare off whomever may be attempting to access your green house is a siren in conjunction with a WiFi, Z-Wave, Zigbee (or any other wireless tech you choose) relay. I have done this to alarm my garage. I bought a cheap siren with a flashing red light that is VERY loud and with a Shelly $20-ish Shelly relay, it’ll get anyone’s attention. Use that with whatever sensor you choose in the GH, motion or open/close. Pretty easy to setup.

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@G2740 I also used a Shelly relay to control my garage door. Gave up on Chamberlain when they tightened up their system to be unusable with HA. This way everything is controlled 100% locally.

As for the monitoring, that is the only reason I have SS. Their equipment isn’t all that useful otherwise. The open close sensors have a delay of up to 30 seconds. I use them for automations to turn off my HVAC when windows are open that doesn’t need to be immediate. I haven’t found any other uses for their motion sensors with that kind of delay. I’m off grid and out of the country so often I need professional monitoring. I may look into Noonlight more down the road. Being that the cost is 1/3 of the SS monthly monitoring, it would save money. I don’t think having the cellular backup is all that critical. For the time being, I’ll see what SS decides to do.

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@Pilotbum @G2740 I use SS to monitor my doors and a glass break detector. I only see about a 1-2 sec delay on the doors and it notifies SS who calls me very quickly when I screw up and trip the alarm. I have several Shelly switches controlling fans, lights, etc. in my GH. They seem very reliable. I will look into some of these alarm ideas. I do need/want something. Thank you for the suggestions!

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The creator of this integration says it only polls HA for sensor data changes about once every 30 seconds. So if a door is opened it can take up to 30 seconds to reflect. Depending where you are on the polling interval, it may be immediate, 1-2 seconds, 10 seconds, or up to 30 seconds (unless this has improved).

You really can create a much more customized alarm system within HA. I’ve thought about doing this with Alarmo the way @G2740 and many others have, but just haven’t taken the time to do it yet. The only caveat is there is no professional monitoring. However, if Noonlight works the way people state, that may be an alternative. Many within the HA community advocate that professional monitoring is pointless (much the way @G2740 has stated with his experience with SS) as technology now allows you to self-monitor. Personally, I need the professional monitoring for when I’m unavailable and I have never had the reliability problems with SS that @G2740 has. However, I used to have ADT and had those problems with them. So who knows… luck of the draw and probably different for every situation.

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Simplisafe authorization code!

I don’t know what I did, fiddling around looking at Simplisafe 2fa, passkeys etc. Never changed anything, but it booted my auth code in HAOS. Lesson, don’t fiddle around with 2fa. lol

It wasn’t too painful, error in Home Assistant to renew it. Click here, read directions etc. At first it a few minutes of head scratching.

I did read directions briefly and clicked here, logged in, something funky pops up, wants to do something, i clicked ok, opened developer options, at first there wasn’t actually any error as described. Head scratch part. Under Console there was a Simplisafe link.

Developer Option window was too narrow, I widened it and there was the auth code in that link, copied numbers only, pasted in HAOS. All good again.:person_shrugging: 10 minutes. Faster next time. lol

Hope it helps someone and works for them. After click here, login, 2fa etc., Console in dev options or dev tools, widen that window to see full link.

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Ha! I’ve actually been surprised I have not had to re-authorize my SS in HA yet. It’s been running for several years now with no issues. :crossed_fingers: I even reinstalled HA in a new computer and it picked right back up.

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I’m joining in here because it seems like the thread with the most recent activity. I’m a long time user of this integration and pleasantly surprised Simplisafe hasn’t shut us down yet. Recently I was wondering why my doorbell automation hadn’t gone off when people pressed the doorbell. I was surprised to find it hadn’t triggered in 2 years! Google AI says the syntax changed about 2 years ago, but I think I’m still in line with the integration docs. Anyway, here’s my automation:

alias: Doorbell
description: ""
mode: single
triggers:
  - event_type: SIMPLISAFE_EVENT
    event_data:
      last_event_type: doorbell_detected
    trigger: event
conditions: []
actions:
  - data:
      media:
        media_content_id: /local/doorbell.mp3
        media_content_type: music
        metadata: {}
    entity_id:
      - media_player.office_speaker
      - media_player.basement_speaker
    action: media_player.play_media

Is there something I need to change for this to work again? I manually started the SIMPLISAFE_EVENT listener in dev tools and noticed no messages there or on _NOTIFICATION when turning the alarm off and on. I’m away from home so can’t ring the doorbells remotely.

It’s not a huge issue because the base station and siren both ding, which is usually enough for us to hear it, but the nice thing about the speakers is it interrupted any music that was playing, which definitely got our attention.

I’ve read a bit about using secret alerts, but we’re not willing to give up the built in base station and siren chimes.

Any ideas?

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Did you get this resolved?

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No I haven’t worked on it since I made that post. I assume there’s a new way to track it, but I’m not seeing any activity on simplisafe_event or simpliesafe_notification, so I’m guessing that’s why my automation isn’t working. If I find a solution elsewhere I’ll try to remember to post here.