Richard is the PC Hardware Lead at XDA and has been covering the technology industry for almost two decades. He's been building PCs since young, and when not creating content, you can often find him inside a chassis somewhere.
If there's one thing I've left in the hands of a third-party for too long, it would be our home security setup. We slowly transitioned to a full Ring package, starting with just the doorbell back in 2020. Instead of heading elsewhere, we enjoyed using the app and cloud storage and decided to grab the Ring starter kit during a sale. It worked perfectly fine until the recurring costs went up with the subscription. This is all without full integration with local authorities, mind you. So I eventually decided to build my own alarm system using Home Assistant, and it's awesome.
Home Assistant is the brain
It controls almost everything inside the home
The most important part of our smart home is Home Assistant. This self-hosted package is what introduces all the features and integrations that can bring multiple ecosystems together. And that's what's so powerful about the software. Smart home products have traditionally been poorly developed, limited to work only with proprietary software, and require additional subscriptions. Home Assistant helps to do as much of this as possible. It's possible to interlink Reolink cameras with Ring alarm sensors and even bulbs from other brands.
Having made the complete switch to Home Assistant, I find myself saving money by mixing brands and hardware together. We're not locked into a single platform, and the same goes for our alarm system. What used to be a full Ring kit now consists of various brands, all managed and controlled through Home Assistant. Because even integrations offered through Home Assistant may not expose everything. Ring is a good example.
That's why we made the full switch to hardware the software can effectively manage. Sonoff is one such brand that fully integrates with the Zigbee protocol and allows its products to be controlled through HA. I already had positive experiences with the Sonoff Zigbee broadcaster and leak sensor, so I picked up some door sensors, motion sensors, and a compact display control panel. Tie in our Reolink cameras, location data, and other devices and I was able to put together quite the DIY alarm system.
There are two elements to this system, both hosted on Home Assistant. The first is an integration called Alarmo. The second are carefully created automations.
Automation brought everything together
Offering finer control over every part of the alarm system
The absolute brilliance of Home Assistant comes about through the power of automation. With the right gear and some free time, one can automate just about anything. The same goes for an alarm system. The Zigbee broadcaster takes charge of handling communication between all our sensors. This helps keep everything off the Wi-Fi and is similar to Ring and other wireless alarm systems. It's also more secure and ensures that nothing can interact with the security hardware, including guests.
And because we're using Home Assistant, these devices expose various entities and sensor states that can be used as inputs for the alarm system. Instead of a simple setup making a loud sound every time the door opens, I can have a custom audio file play for when a specific door opens, fire a notification to selected devices, play sounds through chosen speakers, and even perform other actions depending on whether we're home, away, or somewhere inebtween.
Everything is immediately accessible too. We can configure bulbs to flash red when the alarm goes off. Cameras can be set to record and save if a door is opened while a mode is set, and playing around with a siren or two is always a good laugh for when others aren't expecting a blast of sound. It's the customization that really takes this to the next level and is something that Ring and other providers simply cannot offer. Sure, their apps are great and integrated, but it's a little limiting what you can do.
It's easy for the entire home
Everyone can use it without calling for support
The vital part of the home alarm system was that it would need to be accessible for everyone within the household. I couldn't be the one that would be relied upon to activate or disarm the system. That's what makes Home Assistant such a fine fit because the household is already using the platform for lighting, heating, and other parts of the infrastructure I've fleshed out over the months. It's already a familiar interface, and Alarmo simply builds on top of it with some additional functionality.
Being able to manipulate the alarm system using a phone, one of the available old and repurposed tablets, a desktop PC, or even the configured wall-mounted display makes it simple to adjust the system to our immediate needs. Automations can then take this further by seeing when we're heading out the front door and locking everything up. If the system detects low power usage and no heating, etc., it could automatically set the house to home, at least providing some level of protection.
There are plenty of ways the system can be customized to suit our very needs, and it's awesome seeing all the new ideas that we can try and implement, thanks to the continued improvements being made to the platform UX.
Should everyone build a DIY alarm? No.
Hear me out. Why aren't I raving about custom alarm systems and getting everyone to set one up? Because it's not for everyone. Your needs may not be the same as mine. I'm lucky enough that our household works from home, so we're usually always around. Not only does this decrease the risk, but it also means we're always at hand to contact the authorities. If you work away or find yourself frequently on the road, a monitored system may be a better match.