Ring plugin now support Ring Alarm systems

[dcorsus]

As of version 1.0.0.4, the plugin now also support alarm systems (motion sensor, door/window sensor, keypad and hub) and you can arm/disarm your alarms system, trigger events on alarms, power state, communication state or battery state.

[MNB]

Dirk, with the new update v1.0.0.4 I've noticed that the Ring Master Control > Alarm Cloud Status shows Offline, whilst the doorbells seem to have good Wi-Fi Signal and are operational, am I missing something?

[dcorsus]

Dirk, with the new update v1.0.0.4 I've noticed that the Ring Master Control > Alarm Cloud Status shows Offline, whilst the doorbells seem to have good Wi-Fi Signal and are operational, am I missing something?

Do you have a Ring Alarm hub or a Ring Beam Hub?

There are 2 fundamental ways of communicating with the Ring Server:

1. for cameras it is through HTTP messages and continuous polling. The CAMERA cloud status feature shows whether that is working or not, it is technically not really "connected", but if the PI fails many consecutive attempts to reach the server, it will set this feature to off-line.

2. For Alarm Hub and Beam Hubs, the communication is via a websocket, so now the PI is really connected AND no need to poll, events are received autonomously. This is represented by the "Alarm Cloud Status" feature. I suspect that you have something but in v1.0.0.4 there was no support for any alarm functions so you only have an indication.

As of last night (not released yet), I added smart lighting support (via Alarm hub Pro or Ring Beam Hub), and alarm functions were already in V1.0.0.7

I'm still making major changes behind the scenes, and so unless you are still kicking tires, upgrade to the latest in the beta section. If you have been building events and HST screens, you may want to wait with that a little or step up to the latest asap, as you may have to delete all devices and start from scratch. The icing on the cake though would be support for all the other Ring features.

[MNB]

Thanxs for the comeback, I will wait with bated breath!

[dcorsus]

NC-Lou , MNB , will40

Just posted v1.0.0.8

Although I tried hard not to have you delete all previous created devices, I tested it out on my Linux production system and immediately received an error . Once I deleted all devices (you now do this NOT by deleting the master device but going into the settings page and click on delete all devices), all worked as it should. (note this is POST your upgrade to 1.0.0.8 WHILE the PI is running )

The release notes have a list of changes, but behind the scenes they are quite substantial, as it should now be possible to delete devices or features from the HS devices page, and they can be rediscovered upon restart (or there is now a function available in the settings page).

Other things of note:
1. snapshots now have timestamps as part of their name, this will force HST screens to properly update. They do have the ID instead of the name in the filename .... because .... if I use devicenames and the device name has characters that are not allowed for filenames, all hell breaks lose.
2. snapshots will be automatically downloaded upon motion detection
3. added support for smart lighting devices and Ring Beams


Still a lot of things on my list:
1. still studying how this snapshot business really works. As far as I can tell, you cannot force it and powered versus battery device take them automatically on a different cadence (I think powered each 30 sec, battery each ??? 10 min ??) unless there is motion
2. need to figure out how to enable/disable motion detection, dings etc
3. For alarms, I need to add functions to bypass faulty zones
4. for alarms need a feature that shows status+faulted zones info
5. Need to manage recordings somehow
6. Need to add some checks to see if no features where deleted while the PI is NOT running

Just wanted to get this version out there at the beginning of the weekend as I now have to go tend to some other urgent things around the house.

[will40]

Thanks Dirk.

I followed your instructions above (correctly this time) and just updated to ver 1.0.0.9 and all looks good.

Will

[dcorsus]

Thanks Dirk.

I followed your instructions above (correctly this time) and just updated to ver 1.0.0.9 and all looks good.

Will

Proves that men CAN follow directions

[windracer]

So I've been using Node-RED to get my Ring Alarm system device status in HS4 for a while. It works pretty well although I did have to manually create a lot of virtual devices (mainly the alarm, doors, and motion sensors ... I didn't bother with all the contact sensors on windows).

Just curious about this PI. I'd like to try it out but don't want to mess up my existing setup. Think it's "safe" to try?

[dcorsus]

Just curious about this PI. I'd like to try it out but don't want to mess up my existing setup. Think it's "safe" to try?

It cannot mess up your system as it creates its own devices and act like a Ring controller app

[windracer]

It cannot mess up your system as it creates its own devices and act like a Ring controller app

Ok, I've installed it and now I've got 31 new Ring devices (all alarm-related) in HS4. Pretty cool ... need to start cleaning up/organizing and then do some testing but I can see this completely replacing my Node-RED setup. 👍

[dcorsus]

Ok, I've installed it and now I've got 31 new Ring devices (all alarm-related) in HS4. Pretty cool ... need to start cleaning up/organizing and then do some testing but I can see this completely replacing my Node-RED setup. 👍

The beauty of the alarm devices (as opposed to the camera devices) is that communication between plugin and backend Ring cloud server, is by encrypted permanently on webSocket. Therefore , no polling and nearly instantaneous updates

[windracer]

Is checking the "Siren State" feature of the Base Station device the only way to detect an alarm event with this plug-in? In Node-RED, the alarm status message contains a state of "burglar-alarm" that I use to trigger alarm-related events (like turning on lights) and set other information (like which sensor was faulted).

[dcorsus]

Is checking the "Siren State" feature of the Base Station device the only way to detect an alarm event with this plug-in? In Node-RED, the alarm status message contains a state of "burglar-alarm" that I use to trigger alarm-related events (like turning on lights) and set other information (like which sensor was faulted).

uhhh, really good question, I've been focusing on getting the arm functions and the bypass functions coded , including showing the alarmed zones , that I have not thought about the info and feature when the alarm triggers. Just wrapped the hub into a bunch of blankets to avoid I go deaf when testing. Stay tuned

[windracer]

Hahaha, I get it. The primary reason I went with Node-RED to trigger HS events based on alarm events is because the Alexa skill for Ring also doesn't have an "alarming" state so you can't trigger Alexa routines when the alarm goes off. But with Node-RED I can capture that "burglar-alarm" state from the message payload and then turn on all the lights, flash red LEDs, etc.

Good work so far! I like what I see!

(my wife was also frustrated when I was testing the Node-RED flows and I kept purposely setting the siren off )

[dcorsus]

(my wife was also frustrated when I was testing the Node-RED flows and I kept purposely setting the siren off )

OK, found the info, now need to figure out what kind of alarmInfo.state there are. I have keypad-medical-alarm burglar-alarm so far, will do some digging to see what other values are of use. Suspect there is also fire and police ...