Alarmo Documentation

Alarmo is an alarm system integration for Home Assistant that operates within the alarm_control_panel domain. It allows you to combine existing Home Assistant sensors into a cohesive security system managed via a browser-based UI.

Alarmo consists of three main parts:

1. Alarmo component: A custom component for Home Assistant that manages the states of alarm panel entities.
2. Alarmo panel: A GUI for configuring settings such as sensors, delays, and actions without requiring YAML.
3. Alarmo card: A custom UI card used for arming and disarming the alarm.

Key features include support for up to 4 arm modes (armed_away, armed_home, armed_night, armed_custom_bypass), multiple users with individual pincodes, and built-in actions like push notifications or siren activation.

If you have multiple areas defined, you can enable the Alarm Master in the general tab under general settings.

The Alarm Master creates an additional alarm_control_panel entity that acts as a master controller, watching the states of all individual area entities and mirroring its own state to synchronize them.

Sensor groups help prevent false alarms (common with PIR motion sensors) by requiring consecutive events from different sensors to trigger the alarm.

How it works:

• In a group, the triggering of a single sensor is ignored.
• The alarm is only triggered if 2 different sensors in the group trigger consecutively.
• A time-out time must be configured; if the interval between events exceeds this, they are no longer considered related.

Constraints:

• A sensor can only belong to one group.
• A group must contain at least 2 sensors to function.
• There is no limit to the number of groups, but it is recommended to minimize them (e.g., one group per room).

Setup: Click the 'setup groups' button while editing a sensor to view existing groups or create new ones.

When using multiple areas, Alarmo publishes state updates to dedicated topics for each area using the pattern alarmo/<area_name>/state.

To target a command to a specific area, include the area property in your JSON command payload. The <area_name> must be the slug of the area name (lowercase, with non-alphanumerical characters replaced by underscores).

If no area is provided, the command is addressed to the Master Alarm.

{
  "command": "<my command>",
  "code": "<my pin or password>",
  "area": "<area_name>"
}

Alarmo uses different arm modes to define security zones or perimeters. Each mode represents a specific set of sensors. You can enable or disable these modes in the general tab of the Alarmo configuration UI using flip switches.

The supported modes are:

• armed_away (Away)
• armed_night (Night)
• armed_home (Home)
• armed_vacation (Vacation)
• armed_custom_bypass (Custom)

An Area is a physical compartment (e.g., garage, garden) that can be armed and disarmed independently. Alarmo creates a unique alarm_control_panel entity for each area.

Key Features

• Independent Configuration: Each area has its own sensors, arm modes, exit/entry times, and automations.
• Entity IDs: The entity ID is derived from the area name.

WARNING

Renaming an area changes its entity ID. This will break any existing Lovelace cards or Home Assistant automations that reference the old ID.

Management

In the general tab of the Alarmo configuration UI, you can:

• Add new areas.
• Rename existing areas.
• Remove areas.

Alarmo requires at least one area to be configured to function.

To completely remove Alarmo, follow these steps:

1. Remove from Home Assistant: Go to Configuration -> Integrations, click the three dots on the Alarmo card, and select Delete.
2. Remove Files:
   • If using HACS: In the HACS panel, go to Integrations, find Alarmo, click the three dots, and select Uninstall.
   • If installed manually: Delete the alarmo folder from your custom_components directory.
3. Restart Home Assistant to complete the removal.

Alarmo includes a built-in panel to automatically switch actuators (like sirens or lights) based on alarm states.

Setup Procedure

1. Open the Alarmo configuration panel and click Actions in the top menu.
2. In the Actions panel, click New Action.
3. Select the event to trigger the device.
4. Pick the HA entity from the list.
5. Choose the desired state (on or off).
6. Save the automation.

Supported entity types: switch, input_boolean, light, script. Limitation: Actions are currently limited to turning on or turning off an entity.

You can convert the alarmo_ready_to_arm_modes_updated event into a Home Assistant entity to show readiness information (e.g., green/red indicators) on a dashboard. This is useful for indicating whether specific arming modes are currently available based on sensor states.

To create a binary sensor that indicates if the alarm can be set to armed_away, use a template trigger listening for the alarmo_ready_to_arm_modes_updated event for your specific Alarmo entity.

template:
  - triggers:
      - trigger: event
        event_type: alarmo_ready_to_arm_modes_updated
        event_data: 
          entity_id: alarm_control_panel.alarmo
    binary_sensor:
      - name: "Alarmo Ready To Arm Away"
        state: '{{ trigger.event.data.armed_away }}'