Our house has gas. Gas (heat pump combo) heat, gas cooktop, gas fireplace, gas hot water. We replaced the Franken-furnace that was in the place when we bought it with a competently installed Carrier around Christmas, but still need to get CO alarms in place.
Kidde makes one that plugs into the wall with battery backup, digital display, etc. These units apparently also send out some Kidde-specific radio alert when they go off that can be picked up by their (very inexpensive) CO120X relay module. The thing has NO and NC contacts, and requires 120VAC to drive it. One relay can pick up these signals from multiple sensors, so one is plenty.
My thought was to get two of the wall sensors and one relay. Hook the relay up to the dry contact connectors on an HM-DW001 (or whatever the heck the Everspring door/window sensors are sold as these days). Pair it to Vera as per usual, and set up appropriate scenes. FWIW, they make a similar relay that “talks” to their chatty smoke detectors.
My question: can this HM sensor be supplied with power other than through the batteries without tearing the whole thing apart? For this application, I’m going to have to have the Kidde relay proximate to AC power anyway, and would rather not have the whole mess reliant on batteries.
The short answer here is no, there isn’t an official way of hard wiring the sensor. That being said, using a similar strategy to the often discussed hard wiring of the HSM-100 ([url=http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=132593]How do you hook up a power supply to the HSM100? - HomeSeer Message Board, etc.) would probably work. As with the HSM-100, these sensors use 3 AAA batteries which put out ~1.5V each, so you’re looking at 4.5-5v DC.
I bet you could fairly easily hook up a ~4.5v power supply to it. I’d guess you’d have good luck buy either leaving the battery door off of the unit, or simply drilling a hole in the end of it to connect the wire through. I don’t have one in front of me to look closely at, so I’m just suggesting from memory. Your milage may vary… as they say. If you do give it a try, please post a photo or two of the wiring for the benefit others in the future.
I hard wired one of my 3-in-1 sensors using an old 4.5v LG cell phone charger. Cut the wires and actually connected the wires on the battery connectors in the back so I didn’t have to open it up. This should work for you.
I have the Kidd CO monitors that you are talking about, and while true that they do interconnect via Radio link to each other, however the relay you’ve listed AFAIK, I think is just for connecting to hard wired Kidd CO/Smokes, and gives you the NC / NO outputs that can then be used to do something like shut down your A/C system blower etc or turn on lights or external sirens.
I looked into one of these relays to hook up to my hardwired smokes as a way of interfacing it with my Alarm system; however, if you check your local codes etc, and also get some advice from local Alarm professionals / experts, I was told this was a bad idea to use to interface with an Alarm and abandoned it in favor of additional Alarm system smokes!
Bottom line is that you could use this with hardwired smokes, CO or combi units that are normally fitted to a ceiling or wall, and get it interfaced to Vera via a HRDS1 or similar, but not the plug in type.
[quote=“strangely, post:4, topic:167978”]I have the Kidd CO monitors that you are talking about, and while true that they do interconnect via Radio link to each other, however the relay you’ve listed AFAIK, I think is just for connecting to hard wired Kidd CO/Smokes, and gives you the NC / NO outputs that can then be used to do something like shut down your A/C system blower etc or turn on lights or external sirens.
I looked into one of these relays to hook up to my hardwired smokes as a way of interfacing it with my Alarm system; however, if you check your local codes etc, and also get some advice from local Alarm professionals / experts, I was told this was a bad idea to use to interface with an Alarm and abandoned it in favor of additional Alarm system smokes!
Bottom line is that you could use this with hardwired smokes, CO or combi units that are normally fitted to a ceiling or wall, and get it interfaced to Vera via a HRDS1 or similar, but not the plug in type.[/quote]
Yes, you are correct–I got the Nighthawk home and started digging more deeply and found that the useful “interconnected” aspect only shows up with some of the hardwire units. I’ve ordered a couple if the combo smoke/CO hardwire units, and also ordered one each of the relays for playing with. But no, I wouldn’t bet the farm on any of this as a fire alarm replacement. Too much Rube Goldberg factor for that–especially if Vera is arguably one of the stronger links…
Just a side note: For those that find this thread looking to start from scratch and add CO/Smoke detection (and connect it to vera), you could look at installing a vera supported security system (such as DSC) , and the associated CO/Smoke detector modules. This would give you a “proper” security system with reliable detectors, that would also happen to be able to communicate back to Vera
That’s very entertaining geeky task - but do you realize how unreliable it is?
I mean, it’s CO sensor, I would only do it in addition to unmodified CO sensors you used to have - not instead.
The sensors do exactly what they do anyway–make loud noises and display level readings. There’s no modification to the sensors. The “interconnected” ones additionally (and already) send out a radio signal these relays can respond to. So this would be additional notification (AKA remote), not replacement.
–Richard
Best Home Automation shopping experience. Shop at Ezlo!