Alarm Monitoring service recommendations

[davidcald]

I'm looking for any ideas or recommendations of alarm monitoring services that would work with HS4/BLSecurity directly (no hardware alarm panel). How were you able to make the interface, communications used, etc.?
Thanks!

[davidcald]

Anyone have suggestions?

[George]

I think you will not have much luck. Home alarm system communicate to the central monitoring station using a DCM format. If BLSecurty can't output the codes and send them over the phone or network (if the company supports IOT connected alarms) then they couldn't tell. DCM uses HEX values including your monitoring company account number, the alarm type (model), the zone which has tripped and what kind of zone it is. To know what zone is tripped (it just sends a zone number) you send the alarm company a document cross-referencing the zone number with what it actually is. Like Zone 3 is the Front Door.

If you want I can PM you the phone number of the company that I've used for the past 25 years. They have been in business a long time and might be able to assist or suggest possibly a companion device. Other than that, you might be able to pick up an older HAI Omni board or Elk. Not as an actual alarm panel but for it's inputs. On my OmniPro II, I have inputs that are tied to my Secu16/Ocelot relay output's. Those are defined to the monitoring company as Home Automation Trip and others. I tied in a couple of others that I'm not using yet for something like maybe an Owner Panic trip. The alarm company has instructions to call me if they get the Home Automation Trip but I haven't had to use it as with HSBuddy, I can just send the actual reason for the message to my Apple Watch.

Hope someone else knows more, or if you want the number, let me know.

[avpman]

Hi, I'm also interested in the company you recommend.
Thanks!

If you want I can PM you the phone number of the company that I've used for the past 25 years. .

[davidcald]

I think you will not have much luck. Home alarm system communicate to the central monitoring station using a DCM format. If BLSecurty can't output the codes and send them over the phone or network (if the company supports IOT connected alarms) then they couldn't tell. DCM uses HEX values including your monitoring company account number, the alarm type (model), the zone which has tripped and what kind of zone it is. To know what zone is tripped (it just sends a zone number) you send the alarm company a document cross-referencing the zone number with what it actually is. Like Zone 3 is the Front Door.

If you want I can PM you the phone number of the company that I've used for the past 25 years. They have been in business a long time and might be able to assist or suggest possibly a companion device. Other than that, you might be able to pick up an older HAI Omni board or Elk. Not as an actual alarm panel but for it's inputs. On my OmniPro II, I have inputs that are tied to my Secu16/Ocelot relay output's. Those are defined to the monitoring company as Home Automation Trip and others. I tied in a couple of others that I'm not using yet for something like maybe an Owner Panic trip. The alarm company has instructions to call me if they get the Home Automation Trip but I haven't had to use it as with HSBuddy, I can just send the actual reason for the message to my Apple Watch.

Hope someone else knows more, or if you want the number, let me know.

Thanks for the response George. I'd appreciate you letting me know the company you've been using.

Sounds like what I had thought was likely to be the case... I will need to add some externally triggered "conventional" alarm board that is capable of interfacing to monitoring services. I would need to somehow configure HS4 to fire relay outputs to this interfacing board that would then handle comms with the service. Please let me know if I'm off track here. I really want to avoid any rube goldberg-like solutions. Maybe other plugins can help I haven't put much thought into it but BIG6 or mcsMQTT come to mind.

Unfortunate that BLSecurity does not include some native method to do this but I'm probably not seeing the whole picture.