Add a loud Siren (also integrated with HMS)

Folks, I have implemented a solution for this. It’s not nearly as straightforward as if there were a smart siren/alarm, however it’s effective and pretty straightforward. So sharing in case this is helpful to your needs…

My application:
I have a special-needs child who is a flight risk, especially at night. He’s a teenager and physically able to defeat several physical locks. We needed a siren/alarm to wake us up in the middle of the night if necessary. But didn’t want this same alarm to go off during the day when simply moving about the house. Also, I wanted a solution that was as automated as possible so that it didn’t rely on human intervention to “arm” a system every night (people forget and then tragedy strikes the one time our guard is down).

My solution:
In addition to sensors, the key was 2 Wyze plugs in series and some powered alarm/siren (which one can get from Amazon or elsewhere). The actual alarm should be merely an on/off powered device (light/sound when power is on). Plug that into smart plug #1 (we’ll call “alarm-plug”). Add rules for each sensor (contact/motion/camera) to turn ‘on’ alarm-plug when motion/open detected, otherwise alarm-plug stays ‘off’. Test rules with alarm-plug plugged directly into the wall. Then plug smart plug #2 (we’ll call “timer-plug”) into the wall. Set a schedule rule to power-on timer-plug at X’oclock pm and off at Y’oclock am. Then plug alarm-plug into timer-plug. That’s right, a double smart-plug in series: closest to the wall is on a schedule which governs when the whole system can work, while outer plug controls the actual alarm power switch responding to sensor triggers.

I also set up some ‘shortcuts’ for the timer-plug to manually ‘arm’ and ‘disarm’ the system by merely turning on/off the timer-plug directly (you don’t need the shortcuts, but it was a little easier to explain to other household users by having a simple special button to arm/disarm).

I hope that helps.

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