Hopefully anyone can help me. I’m new to the whole z-wave home automation scene.
I bought the following components:
VeraPlus
Zipato mini Keypad
Fibaro door/window sensor
Fibaro 3-1 motion sensor
Everspring Siren
I wanna use it as an alarm system. That works but when I enter my house through the front door, the Fibaro door sensor activates the Everspring Siren.
Is there a possibility to delay this that i get the opportunity to disarm the alarm with the zipato mini keypad?
I can arm and disarm the sensors in my house with the zipato mini keypad by switching between Home and Away mode, that works perfect.
But i’m looking for a possibility to enter my house with a little time to disarm the alarm with the zipato mini keypad.
Maybe this is a very stupid question, but i’ve searched all over the web and I can’t find the answer or don’t understand it.
I have to back Richard up on this. I would never depend upon vera for any security. It is too unreliable and seems to know when you need it most. You would also be depending upon the apps that are written by people who may come and go at their leisure. I am only trying to save you some time here. Have a backup of a real alarm system in place and then use vera for automation.
[quote=“RichardTSchaefer, post:2, topic:191514”]There may be a virtual alarm plugin … if not you can code it up in PLEG.
But Vera makes a pretty unreliable alarm system.[/quote]
I’ve heard this before - “don’t use Vera for security” - but I’m not sure I get it. I use it for that as well as HA and it’s been terrific so far (~one year). Door/window sensors are quite responsive. 3 Schlage locks work great. Motion sensors work too well. Response time for notifications and alarms is usually sub-second or so. And even though I’ve coded a bunch (lua, PLEG) to prevent false alarms the few false alarms that have sneaked through are sent via email and text almost instantaneously to the wife and I.
I do have robust fiber connectivity and a rock solid power supplier so I’m sure that helps but apparently I’m not understanding something fundamental. But I am willing to listen and learn.
[quote=“marcjw, post:5, topic:191514”]I’ve heard this before - “don’t use Vera for security” - but I’m not sure I get it. I use it for that as well as HA and it’s been terrific so far (~one year).
But I am willing to listen and learn.[/quote]
Well just to start my alarm panel (GE caddx) has never had any of these three problems in the pictures below. And two of them shut down everything when they pop up which is every other day. The third issue of randomly dropping devices only make it a bit less reliable as it still functions just not that one sensor.
I have been dealing with vera support to fix issues for 3 months now and to this day I still have all three problems with no solution from them. Their solution is reboot and run a backup. Bottomline there is always atleast one thing to fix or tinker with on a vera. Alarm panels don’t do this and run solid for years a time with no checking in on them, fixing, updating, calling support they just work!. Vera as much as you might think you don;t have any problems doesn’t just work ever except when new for the first few month with no devices installed. I have 3 houses with vera and this is one in another state with not to much interaction. We will got 3 months or more without being there but I can’t go a week without rebooting to temporary fix a problem. Updates are a 50/50 chance if its going to work fine after or if something is going to change for the worse.
Here’s some pics, if you have any solutions to fix let me know. This is on a VERA Edge by the way, which was an upgrade from a Lite at this location.
You need to decouple the siren from the door sensor, this can be done a variety of ways like not arming the door sensor on away, instead leave it unarmed, and use PLEG or the Program Logic Timer, plug in. This will allow you still monitor the door sensor when in away mode, and trigger a count down timer when the door is opened. If the tigger count s all the way down while still in away mode trigger the Siren. If the key pad is triggered correctly or Vera enters Home mode (less secure, triggering off the key lad is better), then stop the timer.
[quote=“integlikewhoa, post:6, topic:191514”][quote=“marcjw, post:5, topic:191514”]I’ve heard this before - “don’t use Vera for security” - but I’m not sure I get it. I use it for that as well as HA and it’s been terrific so far (~one year).
But I am willing to listen and learn.[/quote]
Vera as much as you might think you don;t have any problems doesn’t just work ever except when new for the first few month with no devices installed.[/quote]
I’ve got ~60 assorted devices, ~15 scenes, ~50 PLEG conditions and have been almost (one call to Vera) trouble free in about a year with the Edge - now Plus. Just lucky, right?
Yup and luck runs out like in my case. I still have one house without any problems and its on a lite that was retired from a bigger house (due to low Ram issues) when the edge came out. But so far the lite has been fine at this house since there is not much going on. And when I say fine I mean it works with the normal quarks of vera. Pleg not saving right, have to reload after changes, then refresh page and those kind of normal work arounds.
But this one house has nothing but issues right now and Vera themselfs can’t seem to fix it for 3 months now. Was good before that around 9 months.
Here is some PLEG I use to trigger the front door to lock after 3 minutes of being closed, assuming it is unlocked. The open/closed are inputs tied to the door sensor and lock/unlock is an input on the lock.
not fr_door_open and fr_door_unlocked and (Fr_door_closed; Now >3:00) and (fr_door_unlocked; Now >3:00)
You could do something like this to activate the siren:
(fibaro-tripped; Now >4:00) and (zipato-tripped; Now >5:00)
This would give you 4 minutes to get to the zipato. Actually this would let the zipato disable the siren 1 minute before the door opens. I am not sure if this is one of the portable buttons or a wall mounted panel.
If you’re setting up conditions for home security I would use a Timer instead of NOW. NOW is evaluated sometime during one minute, could be within 1 second or 59 seconds depending of when NOW was last evaluated. A timer is very precise, on the second.
See my example below. Some of of my motion sensors (close to the entrance) have a grace period of 30 sec before the alarm sounds. One sensor causes the alarm to go off right away.
Name Repeat Expression
IndoorTriggered No AwayMode AND MotionwGrace
IndoorAlarm No (IndoorTriggered AND (IndoorTriggered; !Timer30s)) OR (AwayMode AND MotionDirect)
IndoorAlarmCancel No !AwayMode AND ((AwayMode; IndoorAlarm) OR (AwayMode; IndoorTriggered))
MotionwGrace No (AwayMode; VRumMotion) OR (AwayMode; KontorMotion)
MotionDirect No AwayMode; AllrumMotion