We just bought a new home I am a programmer myself, and am planning to control z-wave devices with my Raspberry Pi and a series of self-written scripts. Ideally the Raspberry Pi will be able to get data on the alarm state know which motion sensors are triggered. All of the automation would go through the Pi, with the alarm panel not really involved for automation.
Do any panels have some sort of serial port or communication channel to talk to other devices? If documentation is available that’d be even better.
The non-ideal but could-work way to do this is to set a z-wave device as an intermediary. Ex) dimmer at 15% means alarm is active and motion detected in room A. Dimmer at 16% means something else, etc. That’s not ideal, but could work.
If none of the devices have a direct way of communicating, which ones offer the most robust ways to directly control z-wave or other devices based on different triggers (ideally not using alarm.com as an intermediary)?
Alarm/sensor activity is not shared via Z-wave or other automation method. Alarm/sensor activity is shared exclusively via outbound comm methods in code format (typically CID here) meant for an alarm receiver.
If none of the devices have a direct way of communicating, which ones offer the most robust ways to directly control z-wave or other devices based on different triggers (ideally not using alarm.com as an intermediary)
None of the alarm panels compatible with Alarm.com are really meant for this type of stand-alone programming. As the industry progresses, automation control is inexorably moving toward the cloud.
Rules are created in Alarm.com, sent and saved to the panel or module to run locally.
As far as a set of locally created automation rules goes, the 2GIG GC2 and GC3 will have some options. However, most of the panels/modules intend for automation to be managed through Alarm.com, and the most robust options are found there.
The non-ideal but could-work way to do this is to set a z-wave device as an intermediary. Ex) dimmer at 15% means alarm is active and motion detected in room A. Dimmer at 16% means something else, etc. That’s not ideal, but could work.
In Alarm.com you can set rules for Alarm triggers based on which sensors triggered the alarm, or simply based on non-alarm sensor activity. Keep in mind there is a limit to what the panel can save and process effectively, so creating scores of rules as a method of translating could be taxing. This would depend on the size of the system and complexity you are looking for.
If you are looking for some rules like “one of my living room windows tripped the alarm,” or “the back door was opened,” then I think you could probably manage it that way. There would be a touch of latency to the Raspberry Pi getting the trigger since you are relying on a wireless action from a different original trigger, but it should work.