Intro to Home Assistant for Smart Home Security
Home Assistant in an open-source home automation software that can be used with Konnected as a smart home security system. We consider Home Assistant the best choice when it comes to privacy, control, and flexibility; but as a free DIY solution that you must setup and maintain yourself (no 3rd-party cloud), Home Assistant requires some degree of technical skill to install and configure. This guide will help guide you with best practices and "recipes" that Konnected has developed for success with using Home Assistant as the brains of your smart home security system.
How it Works
Home Assistant needs to be running 24/7 on a dedicated computer or device in your home (more on that below) and acts as a hub for your smart home. Konnected products talk to Home Assistant over your local network, constantly communicating the state of sensors and devices in real-time to Home Assistant.
Konnected and Home Assistant communicate locally, never sending any data to a server outside of your home network. This connection is fast, secured by your home network/firewall, and completely private.
Konnected manages entities in Home Assistant that represent each zone wired to the Konnected panel as a door, window, motion sensor, siren, etc in Home Assistant. Using Home Assistant's built-in alarm control panel and automations, or with the easy-to-use Alarmo integration, you can create an alarm system with virtually unlimited capabilities:
Capabilities of a Home Assistant based Alarm System:
- Create multiple armed states: Home, Away, Night, Vacation, Custom Bypass
- Include a variety of sensors, from Konnected or other products, in security modes.
- Entry/exit delay with flexible delay time and disarming methods.
- Trigger text messages, push notifications, sirens, lights, sounds, etc on alarm system events.
- Create multiple "partitions" or instances of an Alarm System that can be armed independently (for example: main home & guest suite)
- Arm/disarm automatically based on presence sensing, time of day, doors locking/unlocking, manual PIN-entry code, RFID reader, etc.
- Connect to emergency services via Noonlight, Konnected's professional monitoring partners.
Hardware Required
We recommend running Home Assistant on a dedicated low-power device inside your home. Konnected recommends a few good options for affordability, ease, and reliability:
- Raspberry Pi 4 - The most popular and accessible choice for most, the Raspberry Pi 4 is an inexpensive and low-power mini-computer with an easy Home Assistant installation.
- Home Assistant Yellow - A crowdfunded ready-to-use device created by the Home Assistant team. Currently in pre-order.
- ODROID N2+ - Another affordable single-board computer with easy Home Assistant install.
- Intel NUC - A higher-end mini-computer for even more speed and reliability using a SSD and Intel processor.