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Type 08 24-Hour Audible Alarm and Vista Plug In

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    Type 08 24-Hour Audible Alarm and Vista Plug In

    HI Mark,

    I found out something interesting last night. We have a couple of zones for monitoring our freezers when snowbird between homes. They are wired as RF Zones as a Vista Zone Type 08. The definition in the programming manual is

    Type 08 24-hour Auxiliary Alarm
    • Assign to a zone containing an emergency button, or to a zone containing monitoring devices such as water or temperature sensors.
    • Sends a report to the central station and provides an alarm sound at the keypad. (No bell output.)

    Well we have a sensor that is going on the fritz and faulted at 2AM. This triggered a full blown alarm on the Homeseer side since it was processed as a burglar alarm.

    I would like to avoid flipping on the all the lights in the house, etc. I have a number of different thoughts like using Zone Type 12 or 23 with a virtual output relay. Which will work, but I may have to give up central station monitoring.

    I guess one question, is have you ever considered making you alarm processing more sophisticated? So that you could override the Homeseer side of alarm handling based on the Zone number. For example, in my log from last night, I am getting the following:
    May-15 1:59:04 AM Vista Alarm ****DISARMED****Hit * for faults
    May-15 1:59:04 AM Vista Alarm Sending Display Faults command to alarm
    May-15 1:59:01 AM Vista Alarm ALARM 44 GARAGE FREEZER
    Which I think I understand what the plug in is doing. I suspect that unless the plugin sees "FIRE" in the string, it is treated as a burg alarm.

    It would be interesting to be able to intercept the Zone number and being able to do something before invoking the Homeseer Event Processor with a burg alarm.
    In my case, Zone 44 should never generate a full blown burg alarm on the Homeseer side. Right now it does because all non-Fire are burgs.

    Any thoughts? I am not expecting a solution, but may be why it is not feasible in the Vista Plugin,

    Bob


    #2
    the plugin does not look for words in the message. it reads the bits of data in the messages. I would need a debug log to see what's going on

    if you setup that zone as an aux alarm, and it doesn't normally trigger an alarm under any circumstance, then i need to see the data from the ALARM 44 GARAGE FREEZER message

    Mark

    HS3 Pro 4.2.19.5
    Hardware: Insteon Serial PLM | AD2USB for Vista Alarm | HAI Omnistat2 | 1-Wire HA7E | RFXrec433 | Dahua Cameras | LiftMaster Internet Gateway | Tuya Smart Plugs
    Plugins: Insteon (mine) | Vista Alarm (mine) | Omnistat 3 | Ultra1Wire3 | RFXCOM | HS MyQ | BLRadar | BLDenon | Tuya | Jon00 Charting | Jon00 Links
    Platform: Windows Server 2022 Standard, i5-12600K/3.7GHz/10 core, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD

    Comment


      #3
      Ok,

      I will probably take me a couple of days because I am traveling. I will get the test scenario set up.

      Bob

      Comment


        #4
        Mark,

        Here is the test data.

        I have provided a log from when I armed and turned on debugging. I bypassed a motion and door into the garage so I could take the probe out of the freezer.

        I have log from the activation and disarm.

        And a picture of the event that was triggered.

        Let me know if you need anything else.

        Bob



        Attached Files

        Comment


          #5
          Bob,

          i took a look at the debug info. i can see there are a few differences between this alarm and a burglar alarm.

          But i don't think i can add another alarm state to the plugin; its not a simple effort. And changing the behavior of the existing alarm state is probably a bad idea.

          i wonder if you switched the sensor type to 23 = No Alarm Response (as you suggested)

          then the alarm wouldn't fire, but you would still get a fault or check on zone 44 which you can use to email yourself, etc.

          you may need to register that zone with the plugin as an RF Device so you will get status even when the panel is armed


          curious, what would the monitor company do when zone 44 (type 08) is triggered? would they actual visit the house? since they know its not burglar or fire



          Mark

          HS3 Pro 4.2.19.5
          Hardware: Insteon Serial PLM | AD2USB for Vista Alarm | HAI Omnistat2 | 1-Wire HA7E | RFXrec433 | Dahua Cameras | LiftMaster Internet Gateway | Tuya Smart Plugs
          Plugins: Insteon (mine) | Vista Alarm (mine) | Omnistat 3 | Ultra1Wire3 | RFXCOM | HS MyQ | BLRadar | BLDenon | Tuya | Jon00 Charting | Jon00 Links
          Platform: Windows Server 2022 Standard, i5-12600K/3.7GHz/10 core, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD

          Comment


            #6
            Mark,

            Kind of what I expected. Messing with state machines is a lot of effort. Realizing that the Vista Plugin is very mature, I am not surprised that you are reticent to change it.


            As for the alarm company, it depends. I have national company with a very good automation software. I work around the security industry (with monitoring side of things, I am a 911/Computer Aided Dispatch specialist) and know the plumbing at the company I use. The VP of Monitoring is a colleague, so it all helps if I need customization. I can give them instructions on a zone by zone basis. Or they use the zone definition to determine what to do.

            For the type 8s, The panel beeps but nothing else happens. The panel lets the central station automation see activation, which triggers a voice system that calls my cell and my wife's cell that let us know the zone iis in trouble.

            They do this twice and if we have not pressed "1' to acknowledge then a human starts calling. If we still don't answer they go our third party call list. However it is never dispatched to public safety in any case.

            We snowbird between OH and AZ. I have Vista's in both houses and Homeseers with your plug-in both. The configuration works well.

            I use type 8s for

            1. 5871 Freezer monitors
            2. Sump levels (saved my butt when the pump has failed)
            3. Power sensors - I have good size UPSes at both houses for the computer and monitoring equipment. However I have a sensor for AC power.

            I will have to work the company to see if they will act on a 23 alarm/fault. I don't know if their automation platform sees a 23, which would be a problem. This is the rub, I want to use homeseer to notify me, but have the central station also followup. Freezers, sumps and power are all important because of the loss if it goes on for an extended period of time. I trust my alarm company to make sure someone is following up on it.

            This is the issue that I will need to figure out.

            Is there any chance that you could just mask the type 8 zone from triggering the alarm? I really don't need to have homeseer know that it panel is alarm if it is not a burglar or fire alarm. If need notification I can look a lot at the zone status. I realize I don't know your code, but I know embedded programming and I am thinking of easy outs I have done.

            I will check with the central what they can see. I am not optimistic about the 23. I might need to do custom, I have zone type 91 free.

            Let me know if the masking of zone 8s might work. We will figure something out.

            Bob


            Comment


              #7
              Bob,

              the plugin doesn't really know about zone types.

              i would need to do some more testing with 08s to determine for sure how to mask them out of a burglar/fire Alarm state.

              but the fact that the panel still displays "Alarm" concerns me. wont that be confusing?


              maybe you can modify your event triggers a little: create a second event to monitor zones that are types 08

              there is a plugin called EasyTrigger, that might help https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/ul...sytrigger-spud

              maybe you could add a condition to your existing alarm event to check that none of your type 08 zones are faulted before firing your burglar event (all lights on)

              this is just a guess. i dont use easytrigger, but it does a lot more than standard hs triggers
              Mark

              HS3 Pro 4.2.19.5
              Hardware: Insteon Serial PLM | AD2USB for Vista Alarm | HAI Omnistat2 | 1-Wire HA7E | RFXrec433 | Dahua Cameras | LiftMaster Internet Gateway | Tuya Smart Plugs
              Plugins: Insteon (mine) | Vista Alarm (mine) | Omnistat 3 | Ultra1Wire3 | RFXCOM | HS MyQ | BLRadar | BLDenon | Tuya | Jon00 Charting | Jon00 Links
              Platform: Windows Server 2022 Standard, i5-12600K/3.7GHz/10 core, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD

              Comment


                #8
                Mark,

                I feared the plugin in wouldn't know about zone types, but it did not hurt to ask.

                As for the alarm state for type 08, it is different on the Vista. First the wired horn does not sound. Second the keypanels, rather than sounding the loud steady tone, sound a less obnoxious "beep, beep, beep."

                As I mentioned, I have had it trigger in the middle of the night (sump alarm in a rain storm) and it is still disturbing as all get out. However the horn isn't blowing your ears out.

                I will look in to easytrigger. I was a not aware of it. That would accomplish what I would need.

                I realized looking at my previous post, part of the background here in AZ is that our internet is unreliable. We are on the north fringes of Phoenix and we depend on point-to-point Internet service. This means I have a small parabolic dish on my roof pointing at my carrier's antenna. The problem I have is when wind kicks up, our internet suffers.

                Also being away from the house for six months at a time, my homeseer is more likely to die unexpectedly than the Vista. That is why these items are monitored by the alarm company. I have a lot of things monitored by the homeseer, which emails etc. But most are not time sensitive, nor have property loss risk.

                The things monitored by the Vista are all critical and will result in financial damage if they are not caught.

                Thanks Mark. Let me know what the masking testing turns up and I will let you know about easytrigger.

                Bob

                Comment


                  #9
                  Bob,

                  I spoke with the ad2usb vendor about this.

                  can you capture a detailed log of a regular burglar alarm on your system. i need to see the differences in those messages vs the below you already provided.

                  May-19 6:20:49 PM Vista Alarm [00110011011010000A--],044,[f704002f104400809b020000000000],"ALARM 44 GARAGE FREEZER "
                  May-19 6:21:29 PM Vista Alarm [00010001010000000A--],044,[f704002f104400000a020000000000],"ALARM 44 GARAGE FREEZER "
                  Mark

                  HS3 Pro 4.2.19.5
                  Hardware: Insteon Serial PLM | AD2USB for Vista Alarm | HAI Omnistat2 | 1-Wire HA7E | RFXrec433 | Dahua Cameras | LiftMaster Internet Gateway | Tuya Smart Plugs
                  Plugins: Insteon (mine) | Vista Alarm (mine) | Omnistat 3 | Ultra1Wire3 | RFXCOM | HS MyQ | BLRadar | BLDenon | Tuya | Jon00 Charting | Jon00 Links
                  Platform: Windows Server 2022 Standard, i5-12600K/3.7GHz/10 core, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD

                  Comment


                    #10
                    I have played around with different Vista Alarm Zones.
                    I'm wondering if you could use a plugin Vista Alarm Message trigger?








                    Attached Files
                    DSteiNeuro

                    HS3Pro

                    MSI Cubi Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz, 2201 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s) 16GB DDRl RAM

                    Enabled Plug-Ins
                    BLRussound, BLSpeech, HSTouch Server, JowiHue, MyQ, Nest, Rain8, Squeezebox, Ultra1Wire3, UltraGCIR3, Vista Alarm, X10,Z-Wave

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Good suggestion DSteiNeuro

                      that would allow you to differentiate between the two different alarm types.

                      from what i got from the ad2usb vendor, there is no way to tell the difference.
                      Mark

                      HS3 Pro 4.2.19.5
                      Hardware: Insteon Serial PLM | AD2USB for Vista Alarm | HAI Omnistat2 | 1-Wire HA7E | RFXrec433 | Dahua Cameras | LiftMaster Internet Gateway | Tuya Smart Plugs
                      Plugins: Insteon (mine) | Vista Alarm (mine) | Omnistat 3 | Ultra1Wire3 | RFXCOM | HS MyQ | BLRadar | BLDenon | Tuya | Jon00 Charting | Jon00 Links
                      Platform: Windows Server 2022 Standard, i5-12600K/3.7GHz/10 core, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Mark,

                        Do you still want me to run the test? If so it will be Friday, before I can run it. I need to go to a trade show this week.

                        If Sean is telling you there is no way to distinguish, that is kind of depressing. However you can't argue with him.

                        dsteineuro's idea was where I was leaning.

                        Pretty much I have to look at the message to figure out the Zone and then decode what to do with it. I suspect it is going to be a mix of that and maybe EasyTrigger to allow me to determine if it is a burglar alarm or not. I have three or four zones to look at which won't hurt processing time in case of a burglar, mostly I am just using Homeseer to turn all the lights inside and out.

                        Mark: let me know......

                        Bob

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Bob,
                          We dont need the test. i think you will just need to change how you trigger the various events
                          Mark

                          HS3 Pro 4.2.19.5
                          Hardware: Insteon Serial PLM | AD2USB for Vista Alarm | HAI Omnistat2 | 1-Wire HA7E | RFXrec433 | Dahua Cameras | LiftMaster Internet Gateway | Tuya Smart Plugs
                          Plugins: Insteon (mine) | Vista Alarm (mine) | Omnistat 3 | Ultra1Wire3 | RFXCOM | HS MyQ | BLRadar | BLDenon | Tuya | Jon00 Charting | Jon00 Links
                          Platform: Windows Server 2022 Standard, i5-12600K/3.7GHz/10 core, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD

                          Comment

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