How to trigger an alarm with Smartthings?

Forum for questions and support relating to the 1.34.x releases only.
Post Reply
hlywine
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:44 pm

How to trigger an alarm with Smartthings?

Post by hlywine »

Hi everyone, I am new to ZM, just installed it last week and so far I am in love with it.
I have setup a PC with Lubuntu 18.04 and installed ZM on it with 3 cameras. I think I originally installed 1.32 version but after all was up and running I added master repository, forced the update, and I'm pretty sure that updated ZM to 1.35 version, I could be wrong but in any case, it's up and running great. :D
I am still figuring out a few things with it but so far all is good.
Searching through the forum I saw that some people have integrated ZM with Samsung Smartthings. But nobody has an explanation or instructions on how to do it.
Or maybe my searching skills are not that great...

Basically what I want to do is to force trigger an alarm to a specific camera so the camera records when a contact sensor opens.
For example, when the front door opens, the camera pointing to the front door will record the event.

I already have the Smartthings system set up and working as well as ZM is working, I just don't know how to link them together.
If anyone has any instructions, please point me in the right direction.
Thanks in advance.
alabamatoy
Posts: 349
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2016 2:53 pm

Re: How to trigger an alarm with Smartthings?

Post by alabamatoy »

I have no idea how the referenced "smartthings" work....but I used guardline passive IR and a simple shunt board with USB inteface. The USB is continuously polled by a bash script, and when it triggers, the built in ZM API is called forcing alarms where I want them.

So how you solve this depends on how the smartthings could stimulate ZM. The ZM API is probably the key.
rockedge
Posts: 1173
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 1:46 pm
Location: Connecticut,USA

Re: How to trigger an alarm with Smartthings?

Post by rockedge »

look into using zmtrigger,pl to start and stop events from external scripts. I use it to interface between an X10 usb transceiver(CM19a) and ZM to start events on specific cameras by remote wireless X10 motion detectors communicating with the CM19a
hlywine
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:44 pm

Re: How to trigger an alarm with Smartthings?

Post by hlywine »

Thanks for the replies and suggestions.
I guess my main problem in going forward with any of those is, I am mainly a network guy and I don't know much about programming/scripting.
I have started dabbling with linux some time ago but I am still miles away from being able to create scripts or write code. Most of my stuff was just following instructions that someone else has written.
I figured since there were a few posts where people talked about integrating ZM with Smartthings, maybe someone would actually give a fairly detailed explanation on how to do it so I could duplicate it.
rockedge
Posts: 1173
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 1:46 pm
Location: Connecticut,USA

Re: How to trigger an alarm with Smartthings?

Post by rockedge »

I am not at all familiar with the device but I will check out some specs to see what can be done.
User avatar
iconnor
Posts: 2900
Joined: Fri Oct 29, 2010 1:43 am
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Re: How to trigger an alarm with Smartthings?

Post by iconnor »

If it uses ifttt or something like that we could probably make that integration work better and do a howto... Good job for someone other than me.
hlywine
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:44 pm

Re: How to trigger an alarm with Smartthings?

Post by hlywine »

Smartthings definitely works with IFTTT. If ZM can be triggered by IFTTT, that would be awesome. I am sure there would be a lot more other applications and use cases that people would come up with if "works with IFTTT" was one of its features.
Although I have not used IFTTT so far as I have not needed it yet, but would definitely go that rout if it was integrated.
Also, maybe if someone has used it before can respond, I am curious what the latency is when working with IFTTT, or is it almost instant?
If the latency is minimal, couple of seconds or so, then that's not a problem, but if it comes down to something like 20-30 seconds, then technically it becomes useless as the event is long time over by the time ZM would receive a trigger, and running such a long buffer isn't really preferred for single time events from what I read, unless you have the camera set up to record all the time 24-7 that is.
Post Reply