Smartthings/Konnected feeding an existing system

Smart Home Integrations SmartThings
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I know there has been some discussion on using an existing alarm system and Konnected together. Like many others have stated, I want to use the existing keypad/app/remotes.  In my scenario I don't care to arm/disarm via Konnected/Smartthings.  I'm good, actually prefer, doing this through the existing system. I still plan to add some Fire tablets to see which sensors are open but don't plan to use them for alarm activation.

Maybe this has been answered. Maybe it won't work. But I'm wondering if this can be done in a different manner than most have asked. Instead of going through the existing system first, or concurrently, is it possible to leave the siren and keypads connected to the existing system but connect all the door/motion/etc sensors to Konnected. Then place a set of relays between Konnected's outputs and the inputs to the existing alarm. Since I have the 24 zone setup with 4 outputs, I'm thinking I would set up 4 zones in the existing alarm. 1: delayed door, 2: instant door/window etc., 3: motion (or other "stay" sensors), 4: smoke/heat/fire. The siren would remain on the existing system. 

In this setup, Konnected (as designed) is in charge of monitoring the sensors and notifying Smartthings that something happened. Smartthings can do whatever we want with that knowledge then turn on the corresponding Konnected output based the sensor category that was tripped (see the 4 zones listed above). This would trip the related relay which acts as an open/close sensor on the proper zone for the existing system. The existing alarm would determine what to do next based on it's own status (off/stay/gone). 

Example: The front door, which should be delayed, is attached to any input zone on any Konnected panel (let's say it's on KonnectedPanel2). When it opens, Konnected tells Smartthings. Smartthings turns on a light, turns on a camera, or whatever, then tells Konnected to turn on the KonnectedPanel1's output (which is predetermined to be for delays). That sends juice to Relay1 which acts as an open/close to the existing systems Zone 1 which is designated as the delayed zone. The existing system decides what to do with the siren, strobe or notifying anyone that maybe monitoring it. I'm also hoping the existing system is smart enough to know to ignore a motion sensor that was tripped after the door was opened. This way I don't have to code for that stuff in Smarttings.  

Like I said, I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if there is an issue with this. But I thought it was worth asking before I start re-configuring. 


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I have the same question - have been looking at the other threads to find your reference of "some discussion on using an existing alarm system and Konnected together" but haven't found the right ones yet.


I may just need to research how these things work as I was hoping to somehow "split" the sensors to feed both the existing panel and the konnected panel to run in parallel. I'm not sure if that works based on circuits being completed or not ... but would love to know if there is a way to do this. Eventually I would like to get rid of the existing panel and move everything over to konnected, but I'm not ready to do that yet as I need to tinker with the entire system, panels, etc.


Did you figure out your scenario? Or do you know if a complete parallel operation is possible?

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Nice to hear someone else was looking for the same thing.

I think this will work. But I’m not all the way there yet. Except for the smoke alarm, I have wired all my old sensors to the Konnected devices and have them functioning through smartthings and ActionTiles. They are working very well. I placed a 4 bank relay between the Konnected outputs and the old alarm system. I then created some simple WebCore routines to turn the Konnected output on/off which flips the relays based on whether I consider the house sensor to be delayed, immediate or motion. This all seems to work as expected (proper relays are tripping) The only inconsistency is around some delay on clearing (turning off) some of the motion detectors in a reasonable time period. I think that is related to the motion sensor hardware/DTH, but I’m still monitoring my code to make sure I don’t have any issues there. But the relays are changing in pace with what I see in ActionTiles for the sensors.

I’ve yet to test the alarm panel itself. It has been unplugged while I’ve been working on the Konnected side. I hope to test this soon. Since the old alarm is still being monitored, I just want to make sure everything else is working properly before the fire department or cops show up .

I included some pictures of the connected box I’m working on and a PDF of the setup. There is an example of how this works in the PDF as well as an explanation of the layout. With this design I believe I can use the alarm panel pretty much as I did before plus I get the automation benefits. The only down side I see right now is minor; the zones for the original alarm can only tell me the category of alarm (smoke, delayed, instant and motion). I now need to look at smartthings to obtain details of what tripped that zone. Not a big deal to me as there were too many sensors on each zone before. With a 24 zone Konnected system I can now tell exactly which door it was through ActionTiles/Lannouncer.

Hope this helps. I’ll let you know when I test the whole thing together. And good luck with yours.

(The relay came from amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071K7ZLYL/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

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One of the pictures didn’t post

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Not sure why my response posted as a huge run on paragraph either. Sorry

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Everything is up and running with Konnected feeding the existing alarm system.  I did have to reprogram the existing  alarm to remove some of the unused zones and to adjust some of the ones I wanted to use, like changing the zone types and HW settings to N/C.  I left the smoke alarm and siren attached to the old system.  


It's nice to be able to use all these sensors for automation and still have everyone else use the alarm as they always have before.  


Thanks Nate.

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Hi Greg,

Great job, and exactly what I am looking for as I need to keep the existing alarm monitoring intact.

I am a complete noob in home automation, so was hoping you might be able to add more detail to your explanation?

Can you explain the use of the D-Link DAP1650 Wi-Fi Board and how it is connected into your set-up? Is this to integrate to the SmartHub?

Can you add any diagrams showing how the alarm connects into the solution?

Was there any tricks you used in webCoRe?

Many thanks

Neill

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This is amazing.

Would be great to have this fully documented & supported by Konnected - I imagine many others (like me) are interested in this approach, but might not have the programming skills required.