Recently, I’ve embarked on a home automation project. I’ve installed a number of pieces of technology, but one of the things my wife misses is the keypad at the doors to enable the alarm system. (Mostly, because she can know whether it is alarmed before she exits to take out something to the garage.) I have essentially eliminated them altogether, however, with a geofence system combined with a timing schedule that knows when all three of us are away or asleep and sets the state of the alarm system accordingly thereby alarming the system at the appropriate times.
This is working flawlessly, but she still wants to “see it” so she knows.
The components I’m using are Hubitat, Konnected, TP-Link, Ring, Nest and a set of smart GE bulbs.
I’m having a lot of fun programming everything, but keeping up with the state of the system requires checking with my phone regularly and sometimes it is a little clumsy to do this all the time.
I’m thinking of putting Amazon Fire tablets by the doors in the same place of the existing Brinks keypad. There are a set of four wires, 20 ga I think, originating in the alarm box which are now unused. I wondered if I could run 5v+ on them and use them to charge the Fire tablets?
Has anyone seen a set of USB plates/covers I could connect to the 5v adapter in the alarm box? This saves me from having to cover the holes in the wall when I remove the keypads and adds another USB adapter on the wall.
On another note, I just bought some of these:
Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense
ARDUINO MKR WiFi 1010 [ABX00023]
Arduino Nano 33 IoT with headers Mounted
To me, the ‘least sketch’ way to power the tablets would be with PoE injectors and supplies at either end. 802.3af uses 4 conductors of a Cat5, but it sends DC so it doesn’t need to be anything fancy like twisted pair, so your four wires and some punchdown blocks would make it work. This gives you clean, regulated 5v to run the tablets, and easily available plates and keystones. Cat 5 is already 24awg, so you don’t have to worry about excessive voltage drop with your 20awg.
USB wall plugs are probably available for home theater systems (I think I’ve seen them at home Depot), and you could also just run 5v, but you might run into issues with voltage drop over such a long run of small gauge wire (PoE gets around this by stepping up to higher voltage). If you were to run 5v, I’d cut a USB cable and use one end at the wall plate and one at the alarm box, just soldering the 5v and Gnd wires from the cable into your existing wiring.
Is the power supply for the old alarm system still in place or could it be put back? If so it’s probably 24 volts. You could use a DC to DC switching mode regulator to get 5 volts at the panel box.
Something like this would be quick and dirty. It’s meant for marine that uses 24 volts to go to USB for charging phones and whatever. If you don’t like the color there are plenty of options in this category.
If you wanted to put something inside the panel box itself and make your own circuit there are smaller and more flexible products like this. Sparkfun, Adafruit, Micro Center, hobby stores, and others will have similar DC to DC regulators (might be called buck converters or BEC).
I found one of these in my cache of electronics from the warehouse haul. It looks like it would do a nice job of converting to 5v from the 24v on the power supply.
Can you clarify what she is looking for by seeing it?
It sounds like you are not using “away” “home” buttons as it’s just armed when you physically leave the presence.
So I am not sure what the benefit of adding a screen since the screen will show unarmed until you physically leave.
In the case of “home” while sleeping exterior doors are alarmed have you considered colored lights? It could give you a visual indicator of the alarm status without the need to modify the home.
For example the entry way light changes to a red as an example or even build a box with a light that says status “armed” you get the idea. Ultimately something I am thinking something simpler than a tablet.
Does the Alarm have a mobile app that she can see what the status this may also be an option?
Thinking more about it I would think you would want the indicator near whatever it is you use to disarm the alarm outside of a schedule.
She just wants to KNOW the armed state. The Hubitat dashboard reports this through either an app or through a local URL. She doesn’t want to have to check her phone to know the state of the alarm. This is particularly important in the morning when she’ likely to open the garage door to put trash out.
She can use the FIRE pad to disarm the alarm should it be alarmed, too.
I can light up colored lights with different states of the alarm, but my wife wouldn’t like this solution as much. I may, however, use it in the garage so we can know whether the alarm is off or on based on a light in the garage.
I was thinking about giving you python code that you could play around with. Maybe having a raspberri pi or something as a sensor node. I’ve heard that R-OS has has been used for home makeshift home automation. Not so sure how this fits with the consumer-grade home automation software that’s out there.
With your mention of Ring, I’m reminded that they’ve already been flirting with the idea of facial recognition. It’s a controversial feature if they do end up including it.
