Deciding to pull the trigger...

[whoa_nelly]

Hi All,

Been a lurker for a while, but decided to register Anway fairly new to automation, and have dabbled a bit with Vera, OpenHab, Hubitat and now homeseer. OpenHab is decent for a freebie, but bit of a learning curve. Loved vera for it ease of use, (at least for what I want out of this) but was NOT stable so I sent it back. Hubitat, is so new right now and got caught up in the early adopter, but think its gonna be a while before it becomes what I want.

I tried homeseer as a trail...seems like a bit of a learning cure, but think I can figure it out and its expensive! At least now is a good time to jump on board with the sale, but still costly since Im gonna need hardware (PC/VM, Zave stick, usb server to redirect USB stick if I go VM route etc). I dont mind spending the money if it meets my requirements...one of which I know is kinda frowned upon here but hear me out:

In addition to some basic automation tasks, I want to build a "self" home monitoring/alarm solution. And yes I realize its not that and not the same as being monitored by a third party/service but Im ok with that and understand the "risk"..frankly I dont have any now, so in my mind at least I can build one and monitor myself in addition to some automation tasks I want.

Im an IT person by day, so Im fairly comfortable with tech, have my home on different ups's for things like network and acces points. I have a VPN setup and can access my stuff remotely via VPN client. So I think Ive covered most of my basis. I have a few questions:

Are there any articles/posts available to help setup things like arming, disarming with the various door and motions sensors?

With the above in mind, is it possible to do something like countdown timers before arming/disarming?

Anyonne have success or have done a USB redirect to your homeseer? Was thinking of runing this on a PI while homeseer is a VM on a box in my basement. Or am I better off running this on an old laptop with USB key attached? I guess that way is more simple. SSDs are pretty reliable these days and Id have the benefit of battery backup in the laptop.

Lastly, any recomended plugins? (free or paid, just want to get the right ones) Id like to utilize some google homes/chromecast devices throughout the house for some audio alerts/text to speech.

Sorry the long winded post, but your help and feed back will be very much appreciated!

[mikee123]

Welcome to HomeSeer

First of all what you want to do is all possible, and pretty easy to set up. Lets start with the motion sensors.
As an example, you could create a virtual device, which records if your house is armed or not, or if its empty. I have mine set to empty/occupied (which I then use our phones to automate that but thats another step). Then you create an event, which says if the motion sensor is triggered, and your virtual switch is set to alarmed or empty, then.... trigger another alarm event or whatever you need
Countdown timers. What I would do is set up another event. Say for example if the state of your virtual device alarmed/not alarmed changes, then (add whatever you want to happen) and tick in the advanced after waiting (and there you can set your delay)
USB redirect... I use a USB over Ethernet device. It works, but I need to reboot it about 5 times a day as it looses connection (I have this automated obviously) but its not a reliable solution. It could be the software this usb over Ethernet runs, I am not sure. I am looking for something more stable myself at the moment

[simplextech]

Hi All,

Been a lurker for a while, but decided to register Anway fairly new to automation, and have dabbled a bit with Vera, OpenHab, Hubitat and now homeseer. OpenHab is decent for a freebie, but bit of a learning curve. Loved vera for it ease of use, (at least for what I want out of this) but was NOT stable so I sent it back. Hubitat, is so new right now and got caught up in the early adopter, but think its gonna be a while before it becomes what I want.

I tried homeseer as a trail...seems like a bit of a learning cure, but think I can figure it out and its expensive! At least now is a good time to jump on board with the sale, but still costly since Im gonna need hardware (PC/VM, Zave stick, usb server to redirect USB stick if I go VM route etc). I dont mind spending the money if it meets my requirements...one of which I know is kinda frowned upon here but hear me out:

In addition to some basic automation tasks, I want to build a "self" home monitoring/alarm solution. And yes I realize its not that and not the same as being monitored by a third party/service but Im ok with that and understand the "risk"..frankly I dont have any now, so in my mind at least I can build one and monitor myself in addition to some automation tasks I want.

Im an IT person by day, so Im fairly comfortable with tech, have my home on different ups's for things like network and acces points. I have a VPN setup and can access my stuff remotely via VPN client. So I think Ive covered most of my basis. I have a few questions:

Are there any articles/posts available to help setup things like arming, disarming with the various door and motions sensors?

With the above in mind, is it possible to do something like countdown timers before arming/disarming?

Anyonne have success or have done a USB redirect to your homeseer? Was thinking of runing this on a PI while homeseer is a VM on a box in my basement. Or am I better off running this on an old laptop with USB key attached? I guess that way is more simple. SSDs are pretty reliable these days and Id have the benefit of battery backup in the laptop.

Lastly, any recomended plugins? (free or paid, just want to get the right ones) Id like to utilize some google homes/chromecast devices throughout the house for some audio alerts/text to speech.

Sorry the long winded post, but your help and feed back will be very much appreciated!

Welcome aboard. I too took the dive with the sale pricing. I've been running different variants of home automation for a while now having used basically everything else out there and I finally sucked it up and purchased Homeseer.

To start for a diy alarm setup look at Blade's BLSecurity plugin. That will be a good start and read through that sub-forum and ask questions.

For hardware, start simple you don't need to get all fancy with remote stuff just yet. A laptop and USB stick would be perfect to start with, or even a Raspberry Pi with a z-wave stick would be fine for starting and cheap. Take advantage of the current sale and grab an HS3 license or a HS3-Pi license and then get a USB stick. Done everything you need to start.

[macromark]

I dont mind spending the money if it meets my requirements...one of which I know is kinda frowned upon here but hear me out:

In addition to some basic automation tasks, I want to build a "self" home monitoring/alarm solution. And yes I realize its not that and not the same as being monitored by a third party/service but Im ok with that and understand the "risk"..frankly I dont have any now, so in my mind at least I can build one and monitor myself in addition to some automation tasks I want.

Are there any articles/posts available to help setup things like arming, disarming with the various door and motions sensors?

With the above in mind, is it possible to do something like countdown timers before arming/disarming?

We highly recommend installing a dedicated security system and using HomeSeer to enhance features of it and provide some redundancy. That said, it is possible to do what you want fairly easily.

One way to arm or disarm a sensor

1. Create a virtual device named "Sensors" (or whatever makes sense to you)
2. Change the default "On" and "Off" values of this device to "Armed" and "Disarmed"
3. Create an event with triggers that will change this device to "Armed" when you want it to be armed. Since there's no limit to the number of triggers you can create, you can cover a lot of bases. One trigger could just be a timed trigger set to 9 am. Another trigger could be based on occupancy. you decide.
4. Create another event that will change the device to "Disarmed" when it's 5 pm or when the house is occupied.
5. NOW, you can create all your security events, using the condition of the "Sensors" device. Example: If kitchen motion sensor is set to "motion" AND IF "Sensor" device has a value of "Armed", then email me and sound a siren, etc...

HS3 also include custom definable timers so you can use the values of timers as triggers also.

[dmiller]

Hi, Another new user here captured by the current sale. I knew I would not be satisfied with the USB dongle long term, so I bought the Z-wave remote interface. I hope that was a good decision.
If you are doing security be sure to understand the Envisalink board that interfaces wired security systems to Homeseer and a few other HA controllers. I'm in the "wire everything you can" camp when it comes to HA and security devices.
Personally I would not do a z-wave only security system. I think a hybrid security system that uses z-wave and other sensors to enhance a core, more secure real security system is the way to go.
I'm going to be running Homeseer on a Windows server I built for Blue Iris (NVR camera software).

[whoa_nelly]

Thanks everyone for chiming in! I feel good about this, Im more than likely going to purchase it.

As stated, I dont have an alarm system now, and dont think I would pay for one at this point in time, so this is why Im leaning towards home automation software and achieve this as a plus...and its better than the nothing I've got now. What I DO like about homeseer is the integration capabilities should I change my mind and go the "monitored" route.

I have a bunch of Zwave sensors Ive slowly started buying as sales come and now have enough to cover all of my entrances. So its a start

Im still torn on laptop/VM route. I too have blue iris running (ON A VM), on a beefy machine with 32GB ram, raided etc. Only have 2 cams now and may expand by one more. Was thinking of spinning up another VM spacifically for homeseer. I dont like the PI route only cause of possible SD failures and having to deal with routine SD backups. I could probably utilize berry boot (I do this for some retropie setups for emulation) and thats pretty solid as it initially boots berry boot from SD and then the other OS from USB...or can enable USB boot on the pie, but not sure if the HS software supports that. Plus I want windows just incase for plugins compatability/limits. Also the benifit of using snapshots at the VM level should I go the VM route.

For the USB/ethernet issue. Im gussing you can do the same thing with paid software (another cost I know) and a PI. Think its called USB redirector by insentive pro....I think its essentially what homeseer sells as their znet or whatever its called.

Awesome, so those of you that have switched, you are happy with homeseer overall? I think Hubitat is going to make some noise once it gets up to speed. They current dont have an app yet (but in development) citing that their focus is more about the automation aspect. I still like control tho and having an app is just handy. Which brings me to my next question:

How is the base app for homseer? Would that suffice enough for a wall mounted tablet. Im look more for function rather than asthetics and cant be bothered to spend time to desgin my own, cause I know that rabbit hole can be like and get sucked in for hours lol Just want something that "works". Imperihome was good, to bad they moved to subsciption model, I would have paid money for a base app and the design element was more that I would ever need.

[Tomgru]

If it helps....

Came from Vera two years ago and never looked back. I have HS3 running with BlueIris on the same server and it works great. USB passthrough is a problem with VM, but I run HS3 on the 'main' partition.. BlueIris is in one partition, Windows Home Server on the other.

I needed USB for my AD2USB interface to my Ademco alarm. For Zwave, I use a zwave in another room via Ethernet connection directly to my router... works amazing!

I have tablets all over house... and sadly (for you :-) ) I do use Imperihome still... got in before the subscription. HomeSeer is promising a new remote app soon that has dashboards, etc... so you may be saved by that solution.... the IH plugin is amazing though if you do bit the bullet on the IH cost for the client.

[dmiller]

If it helps....

........BlueIris is in one partition, Windows Home Server on the other.

.......

Tom do you think there is a significant advantage of separating BI and homeseer? I'm about to put homeseer on a BI machine.

[mikee123]

I have come from Vera too, also about 2 years ago. So glad I made the move. Homeseer is not perfect, but once you start getting into it, the potential is huge. It can do a lot, and the support of the folks on the forum here is fantastic. I had a lot of help, and a lot of the guys have gone a lot further than you would ever expect. I have a very complex system now, and still find new things I can automate and add.
I would not hesitate to recommend Homeseer (and I have). I looked at a few different systems, and did a bit of research. I think this is very open, in terms of different technologies (zwave, zigbee etc) as well as the relative ease to create complex logic. And once the events cant handle your demands, you can script. I love it.

I run BlueIris and HS3 on a mini PC with a i5 6500T and 8GB ram, 6 HD cameras (with motion enabled). All on 1 partition, and no problems.

[whoa_nelly]

Thanks all, I pulled the trigger! With the candian dollar it was still a bit of an ouchie, but I think this will be the right system for my needs I hope the new app is decent, as I do eventually want to go the tablet across the house route.

Anyway to get deals on the plugins? I totally respect the people's time that they put into developing them and the market reach is going to be limited to just homeseer customers, but Im looking at at least another 100 bucks worth of plugins which is actually 150 of our monopoly money here north of the border . At the very least I think Im gonna want the BL Security plugin and probably the chromecast one as well as Im pretty invested in GHs and chromecasts. Trying to think of what other plugins Id might need

Thanks to all for your input! I look forward to being part of the crowd!

[ksum]

I would suggest not getting any plugins at first as you will be busy enough for a little while setting the rest up. When ready, do the free trial (if available) of the plugin and spend a little time with that one plugin. Then make that purchase if you are still interested.

Karl

[macromark]

Thanks all, I pulled the trigger!

Anyway to get deals on the plugins?

thanks for your business and welcome aboard! Week #3 of our Black May sale will include select 3rd party plug-ins. Keep an eye on the flyer for that.

[whoa_nelly]

Thanks Karl, But it seems at the very least the BL security and posbbily the Chromecast plugin is going to be a must.

[whoa_nelly]

Thanks @macromark! That timing seems perfect, I can slowly setup my devices and stuff and get re-familiar with homeseer after my trial ended. Cudos to you guys for making a great product, that is first and foremost LOCAL controlled!

[Jobee]

Hi All,


In addition to some basic automation tasks, I want to build a "self" home monitoring/alarm solution. And yes I realize its not that and not the same as being monitored by a third party/service but Im ok with that and understand the "risk"..frankly I dont have any now, so in my mind at least I can build one and monitor myself in addition to some automation tasks I want.

This is exactly what I wanted, and I did. I had a system installed when I built my home, so with the right plugin and a recommended board, I have it all setup and it works.

The key is to make sure what panel you have and then the plugin you can work with.

I have mine setup so if the alarm is tripped, it does alert 911 with a prerecorded message. My smoke alarms are also tied into my system.

Michael