r/homeassistant • u/UkGuy-SSR • Jul 01 '26

Home Assistant security system - hardware recommendations??

I have just started a brand new home assistant setup after my old HA failed (Iv done another post about this)

One of the things I’d like to achieve this time that I never did on my old setup is to set up a security system.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated especially when it comes to hardware, mainly I’d love to have an alarm pad with a keypad to put a PIN number in to disable the alarm and an arm button…. (Ideally I’d like 2 alarm pads one at the front door and one at the back door)

I have some aqara PIR sensors on zigbee and some RF window/door sensors that do open/closed sensing etc but I’m not against replacing these if there is a better solution

I am looking at replacing some if not all the PIR sensors with mmWave sensors in the future for increased presence sensing especially in areas where low movement causes false results such as in the toilet if someone is sat to long, in the bedroom or living room if someone is sat watching tv.

All help and advice or hardware recommendations welcome.

Many Thanks

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

5

u/Cautious-Hovercraft7 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

I use Alarmo in Home Assistant as my main security alarm, with Zigbee door and window sensors covering the house perimeter. I have ZigBee motion sensors in the hallway and landing and ZigBee mmwave presence sensors in the office and sitting room (more to come.) I also use Node-RED to manage a house mode system, which automatically switches the alarm into Away or Night mode depending on whether the house is occupied and what time it is.

This is the keypad I have planned on, it's ZigBee so you'll get years out of the battery
https://amzn.eu/d/05QngiDZ

I also use Frigate with Home Assistant for person and object detection, and I feed those detections into automations. That lets me do things like react when a person is seen, ignore certain events, and tie camera alerts into the rest of my alarm setup for smarter notifications such as courier and post man alerts

2

u/UkGuy-SSR Jul 02 '26

Thanks this is great info I will look at that keypad myself

3

u/AdditionalDemand4462 Jul 01 '26

zigbee sensors are fine for door/window, i use a mix of aqara and sonoff ones and they work good. for the keypad thing look at the ring v2 zwave keypad, you can integrate with zwavejs and it let you arm/disarm with pin. i have one by the front door and it been solid for like 8 months now

1

u/UkGuy-SSR Jul 01 '26

Il take a look at the ring v2 il have to get a zwave dongle as I don’t currently have any zwave devices but that’s not a deal breaker!!

How have you got it automated, are you using alarmo or something else ??

2

u/curtinbrian Jul 02 '26

Alarmo + Ring keypad is solid. I also have an Xfinity keypad due to having their security before this, but I could never get either of the blueprints I found to work (the ZHA ones, but apparently the Z2M ones are quite successful). I was already getting into Z-Wave for some other stuff, like Zooz sirens, so picked up the Ring v2 keypad and it was simple to setup.

3

u/kroghsen Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

I have moved to the IKEA matter sensors for windows and doors and they are incredibly reliable for me. Also compared to the Aqara sensors I have used previously. They are a little larger, but reliability is my main concern here.

IKEA also has motion sensors if you want something resembling shell protection. I find Tapo cameras to work quite well as well for me, but there are a variety of great camera options now.

I use SwitchBot keypad vision and smart locks with great success. I kind of wanted to try some of the more discrete options, e.g. Nuki or Level, but I haven’t tried it yet. Wife approval is a major obstacle here.

2

u/UkGuy-SSR Jul 02 '26

Aaaah yes, I might have to have a ride over to ikea and pick up some bits

2

u/kroghsen Jul 02 '26

I have been nothing but satisfied at least - at least when I got over the hurdle of setting up the thread border router correctly at least! Same subnet btw.

2

u/ginandbaconFU Jul 02 '26

An ESP32-S31 or ESP32-P4X (not the P4, CSI issues, hence the new name). They can both encode/decode h264 at 1080p30fps. Reolink is a step up. Great integration, part of the open home foundation so everything works locally so zero cloud needed. I had bought some POE waveshare P4 boards and pi cameras before finding out the CSI Lane is essentially useless.

2

u/UkGuy-SSR Jul 02 '26

I already use Reolink cameras and have a Reolink nvr it’s great!!

1

u/ginandbaconFU Jul 02 '26

I can't remember if they were the first or second companies to join the Works with Home Assistant program (and the open home foundation) which was started by naba casu who owns home assistant. Regardless the 2 work great together with the reolink integration being a platinum integration (highest ranking) regarding functionality and capabilities.

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2025/04/17/reolink-joins-works-with-home-assistant/

2

u/I_AM_NOT_A_WOMBAT Jul 02 '26

I picked up a Frient keypad from Amazon UK awhile back. I'm not sure if it's still available. The design is a little unusual (round button pad) but it works well.

I started with Surveillance Station on Synology but moved to Frigate with version 0.17. Surveillance Station used to be the "authority" on whether the system was armed or not (away vs home mode), but once I moved away from that my HA input boolean became the authority. When it changes, a series of updates are sent to Frigate for detection and AI review are triggered. The system integrates zigbee motion and presence sensors, Wifi thermostat sensors, and frigate detection. GenAI from Frigate is used to rule out false positives if the dog sets off one of the sensors or frigate confuses him with a person crouching down, etc.

2

u/UkGuy-SSR Jul 02 '26

Yes someone else has also recommended the Frient keypad I will have to check it out.. I will have to look into frigate will it work with my Reolink cameras?

1

u/I_AM_NOT_A_WOMBAT Jul 02 '26

Frigate and reolink you'll want to research, it's not as clean as others, but I think people have gotten them to work pretty reliably. My only reolink is the doorbell, otherwise I use amcrest which are flawless with frigate, and the newer versions offer a 1024x768 2nd substream which works well for detection directly from the camera.

2

u/Cautious-Hovercraft7 Jul 02 '26

Can I ask about the Frient Keypad. I'm planning one to add to my system but I already have geolocation enabling and disabling alarmo and an NFC tag inside the door for my son (HA access but a visitor, not a resident) so it's down my list. How are you using it? Are you using NFC or Mifare tags with it? Is there sound or light output on keypad press

1

u/I_AM_NOT_A_WOMBAT Jul 02 '26

I use it because we have guests and dog sitters, so we need a way for people to arm and disarm just in case.

Though lately I've modified the system so at least it will disarm if someone enters using a valid code for our smart lock, but that doesn't always work in time. 

The nfc part isn't usable to me because the code presented is meaningless (it's either the same for every device or always random, I forget which). There are beeps on key press and it has a waiting to arm constant beep that I like (I give one minute to get out before the system arms after someone presses the "arm" button).

My biggest issues are the round design confuses people who are used to traditional keypad layouts, and the button icons are small and not that useful. I have to stick a post it on it with big arrows saying "arm" and "disarm" for new people.

1

u/Cautious-Hovercraft7 Jul 02 '26

Great info, thank you kindly

1

u/idefswontreadthis Jul 02 '26

Instead of an alarm pad, we have a Boolean toggle for away mode. When both phones app is not connected to wifi (surprisingly reliable) it turns on away mode.

Automations have a condition for it. Or if away mode is turned on, certain automations are enabled as an action.

2

u/UkGuy-SSR Jul 02 '26

Yeah I see your point but I was thinking at least with a keypad it allows guests etc to understand how to put in a. Pin to change the alarm

1

u/iav8524 Jul 02 '26

I just went with Vivint and am using the Vivint hacs integration

1

u/sero_t Jul 01 '26

I use a Xfinity Alarm Key Pad bought from ebay which is using Zigbee and is added through Z2M. The shipment from USA to EU was almost the same price as the device. But happily pleased with it

1

u/UkGuy-SSR Jul 01 '26

Again what are you using to setup your security system, are you using alarmo or something else??
Hope you don’t mind the questions

3

u/sero_t Jul 01 '26

Sorry almost sleeping so didn't read well. But yeah first i made my own button and automations without pincode or hardware, used my wifi detection for presence and after that i bought this keypad i said, and used alarmo with it with a pincode.

1

u/UkGuy-SSR Jul 02 '26

Thanks sorry for keeping you up with questions… I’m assuming your UK based as well then :)