The concord232 integration should be removed or updated with the MQTT alternative

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1

The concord 232 integration listed on the Home Assistant is mostly useless at this point for 2 reasons:

  1. It doesn’t work when you use the Pi image which is the suggested installation method. It doesn’t work because it requires, at a minimum, a client python file to be running on that same machine which you can’t do (it has imports), and likely you’d want the server there too which would make it even more difficult

  2. The implementation there relies on polling which is extremely slow and likely you’d miss most doors opening / closing

This makes it really misleading to new comers (like myself) who thought they could actually use this integration when installing on the Pi with the recommended way.

Since it doesn’t work I’ve forked the SmartThings server from HTTP to MQTT and successfully integrated it with HA examples in my github repository here.

Anyone attempting to use the concord alarm panel should just use MQTT instead, at least they can run the server somewhere else and it doesn’t require anything on the HA machine.

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Yes the polling option was never really a satisfactory solution.

I was looking at a D-Bus to MQTT solution based on this project which is a far more efficient server.

Might be worth while investigating this a little further. https://github.com/darconeous/concordd

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Sure, using C instead of Python for the communication daemon may be more efficient. The one I’m using is based off of the original py-concord here.

That being said, I’ve been running the Python one for >3 years now (for SmartThings originally) and it’s averaged ~2% CPU usage on a RPi3 (and that includes the communication part of it as well, not just the daemon), so I honestly don’t think it matters at this point. The Python one is efficient enough, and my fork of it for MQTT is working great on Home Assistant.

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As long as it’s working for you that’s all that matters.

I used Jason Carters solution for quite a while with HA in a Venv and while it appeared to be effective by reducing the scan interval down to 1s, as you say a polling solution was not going to be efficient in the long run.

I like that D-BUS server solution so it’s just getting the time to tie it in with MQTT that’s lacking here.

There isn’t a lot of Concord users left on here (doesn’t help that the Panel has been discontinued) but for the ones that are they should try your solution and give you some feedback on it.

Nice work :+1:

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I have Jason Carters solution - the server running in same machone as HA (on a raspberry pi 3+).

How do I get HA to see the Jason Carters solution?

I added entries into the .yaml and it causes the HA to not boot per the HA website.

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Ok, so it should be removed, but you wrote your replacement for it as python 2 code??? Uh…

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Buddy I wrote that 4 years ago. Feel free to upgrade it to Python3 if it bothers you.

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I know this is an old thread, but since the Concord232 integration was just disabled, is this still a viable way to connect my Concord panel to HA?

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I am testing the linked project, and it seems very good. Not using polling, async, and response is instant. I run the webserver and libraries on an RPi near my automation module, with a usb to serial cable. My HA is core on baremetal ubuntu, and fair warning you have to figure out the install, not documented yet, but it was not super hard. The Dev is active and seems very responsive. YMMV

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Thanks I’ll look into it. All my HA runs on UnRaid with my HA on one VM and my current Concord 4 connection deployed on Ubuntu. Hopefully I can figure out how to get this working on the existing VM, probably overkill, but it is already in place.

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So I had time to set this up today. I spun up a new Ubuntu VM on my UnRaid, installed Docker and ran the project you linked to. It was really simple. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction to get this sorted out!

Update: The status updates from concord4ws are super fast, but I’m having an issue arming my panel to “home” I have to send the arm home command twice for it to work. If I send it only once, it arms to away and my motions inside the house trip the alarm.

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So i just tested mine again, and I use it all the time. I just type in the code and then click Arm Home, and it sets the panel waits for 30 seconds for someone to leave and then is on. It does not trip. The only annoyance is I used to be able to type a “4” after the code and get instant “home” so no beeps for 30 sec. I plan on seeing if I can add a script to do this, or I will ask the dev for an enhancement.

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Weird. I’ll have to test more. I also have an issue with my interior motions showing as “tripped” when their is no motion present. I had the same issue with Concord232 also, so I wasn’t surprised to see it again.

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Some motions have N/C and N/O contacts…have you tried removing them, restarting panel, then add them being sure to “trip” them when you set them up. Also make sure the EoL resistor is correct for the N/C or N/O arrangement

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The actual panel sees the motions as not tripped, meaning I can arm it just fine and when they are tripped it shows that zone in alarm. So I don’t think it is anything with the wiring, or EoL Resistors. I’ll have to dig out the Concord manual and give it a look again though.

I fixed the issue in HA by creating a template sensor for them and using that for all my alarms and automations.