Ring Alarm - Turn on GE toggle switch when Alarm triggers?

@AMM112 wrote:
Thanks 5150Joel for the input and using Alexa along with your ring system…I did try using Alexa myself and even had their tech support give it a go but so far no one has been able to get my GE switch to come on when the alarm is tripped…I need this switch to do that because ring siren is terrible… No one outside the house can hear it…I need to add a real siren and hopefully a stone light so that people driving by can hear and see my house is compromised. I’m embarrassed to tell anyone that I have a ring alarm that can not be heard when tripped… It’s a joke… My barking dog is louder than their siren… And the add on one… That one is even more of a joke

Sorry about that… I obviously misread or misunderstood your post of what you wanted to try and achieve. I’m not sure what you’re after is possible at this time.

Hi Brian,

Finally got back to this. Using simple commands would be a lot easier than the smarthings/webcore approach. Unfortunately, Simple Commands is NOT seeing the state change for Ring when the alarm is triggered. It can see and issue commands to change the Ring state to armed home/armed away/siren on/siren off etc, but when the alarm is triggered, there is no change in state so the routine I wrote to turn on lights and set off a utilitech siren does not execute.

Did you turn off two-factor authentication to get this to work?

I have seen a thread, https://simplecommands.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360034851934-Ring-Alarm-Triggers that seems to confirm that ring triggers are not working in simple commands.

What am I missing?

Gary

Update. Seems to be working now.

I had set up a simple routine to turn on a smarththings lamp when a ring motion sensor triggered. Suddenly, about 4-6 hours after creating the routine, the light went on when I entered the room.

So today I turned off PM again and tested my Ring alarm routine. Worked like a charm, turning on two lights and setting off a Utilitech siren.

Will continue to test periodically, but Simple Commands seems to be the simplest solution!

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When I connected Simple Commands I created a 2nd account inside ring, DISABLED access to that 2nd account for all video (so just alarm / contact access) and then used that 2nd account for Simple Commands access.

Try that. Then if you need to turn off two factor, it’s not AS big a deal (but still not a great answer).

Hello,

I am new to the Ring community. When you say “Add a second account” do you mean adding a new “User” in my existing account, or creating a completely new ring account?

Thanks!

Best to direct your question to BGorgas

I do not use Ring camera’s just Ring Alarm. I only needed to use two-factor authentication once when SimpleCommands was first set up. I am guessing that SC is communicating directly with the Ring hub and NOT the Ring server, since I can now log into SC without 2-factor (though to reply to your question, I needed to log into Ring Community with 2-factor :slight_smile: )

Please let me know is they figure this out I ll be the first one to buy the systems if when trigger connect to and outlet for lights etc
Please share any info thanks

No sadly they will not step up and let any z wave add on work with their alarm system for a real loud alarm or siren let alone the ability to turn on what lights you want to turn on. You have to buy their junk add on lights and alarms. The alarm and their add on Dome siren is only as loud as a small smoke detector which can not be heard outside your house.
… It’s an total failure by Ring … They call themselves an alarm system … With an alarm that will only scare you cat… Dumb

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It’s interesting that your focus is the alarm noise. I’ve had 3 different security systems and neither ADT or Simplisafe were any louder? I have 2 floodlights that have the speakers with a “siren” and find it quite silly that you can’t have those linked to your alarm… seems like a glaringly easy integration to miss. I also wish the chime had more integration and better support, it’s clearly a very poor afterthought. (I have my chime linked to camera motion outside, snoozing it when I leave for work every morning is a blast…)

I am baffled that we can’t link our smart lights to turn on.

For clarification, are you saying that turning off two-factor is the only way to get simple commands to work?

Please see my post on 03-23-2020 11:03 AM.

You DO NOT have to turn off two-factor authentication.

Some with Ring cameras may choose to…

Is your Simple Commands Ring Alarm - Smarthings integration still working? Everything was fine for three months, then a couple of weeks ago, some of my routines stopped working. Came back for a couple of day’s and haven’t worked now for about 10 days.

Tried to contact SimpleCommands support and also posted in the forums, but it looks like there hasn’t been any life at SimpleCommands for a couple of months…

Also looked into IFTTT integration with Ring Alarm, still doesn’t seem to be any (but Ring Doorbell is fine…)

Hi - when you say a second account do you mean user? Ie, from Devices->Alarm Base Station->Base Station->Shared Users ?

Yes exactly!

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Thanks for that - its actually a very neat solution!

Have got it set up now - need to do a bit of testing to make sure it behaves how I think it will - but should be just the ticket.

Could you show me what are this commands to do it? Thanks

  1. Get an account at simplecommands.com

  2. Connect the services you use (Smarthings, Ring) to SimpleCommands see https://simplecommands.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002893093-Adding-Items (I use the web interface, not the android app)

  3. Once you have connected your services, you should see all the items (Ring Alarm, motion sensors, smarthings lights etc).

  4. Click on menu in the upper left (on web interface) and select routines.

  5. Follow the GUI prompts to set up which items you want to be turned on/off based on what device is triggered (i.e. Ring Alarm, motion sensor) and what time/day’s you want the routine to be run

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This is a needed feature!

Any updates on ring system triggering the ge smart outlet when the alarm triggers? The ring alarm and the dome additional siren are both so quiet that I can barely hear it outside my house… alerting neighbors is one key way to prevent or catch burglars… Why doesn’t ring just add an exterior, loud siren? I live in a rural area, the sheriff won’t arrive for 20-40 minutes, the neighbors would be watching or driving over to my house if they heard an alarm.

@Mauiman I was using a similar setup with you via a SimpleCommands routine. Have you found it to be consistent/reliably responsive to the alarm going off? I’ve found that SimpleCommands sometimes loses its ability to track the alarm status. (It failed to turn the GE Switch on when we ran the alarm for a test with our local fire department.)

It’s frustrating that Ring now can trigger some of the 1st party devices (e.g., cameras and lights) when the alarm is sounding, but not the officially supported 3rd party devices like the switches.

I’ll re-invigorate this thread… RING- you want to tout great service and features, but you are failing on the smart home integration. This thread is over a year old and you have yet to address this. I just bought a $250 ring system that is about to get sent back. Vera already gives me the ability to monitor the property. I want advanced features rolled in. Like others have stated, I want the ability to turn on C by GE lights when the alarm is tripped. Even with Alexa integration, I can only turn on lights based on Home Armed, Away, and Disarmed. Honestly, that’s pretty useless. Are you going to start integrating more features or am I returning the system?

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