Zoned Security for Home Assistant

Zoned Security is a YAML-configured Home Assistant custom integration for a zone-based alarm workflow. It exposes one alarm control panel plus helper switches for modes, zones, pre-alarm, delayed alarm, manual inhibition, and notifications.

It is designed for households that want Home Assistant to own the alarm state while HomeKit automations feed zone triggers into Home Assistant. It can also be used entirely from Home Assistant automations.

Project Lineage

This project is inspired by a customized alarm setup built around the former homebridge-automation-switches Homebridge plugin. The original plugin provided useful primitives for a HomeKit-facing security system and automation switches. The delayed alarm, manual inhibition, and pre-alarm workflow documented here were implemented by combining those primitives with additional automations.

Zoned Security brings that pattern into Home Assistant so the alarm state can be managed locally and then optionally exposed to HomeKit through Home Assistant's HomeKit Bridge.

Features

• Alarm control panel with home, away, night, and disarmed states.
• Configurable zone switches.
• Configurable mode switches.
• Helper switches for delayed alarm, pre-alarm, and manual alarm inhibition.
• Optional notification services for alarm, inhibited alarm, and pre-alarm events.
• Logbook activity entries for mode changes, zone triggers, and alarm outcomes.
• Persisted alarm mode and zone state when enabled.

Intended HomeKit Usage

A common deployment model is:

1. Configure the alarm system and zones in Home Assistant.
2. Expose the alarm control panel and selected switches through Home Assistant's HomeKit Bridge.
3. Keep existing HomeKit automations responsible for deciding when a real sensor should turn on a zone switch.
4. Let Zoned Security handle the shared alarm state, delay window, inhibition, notifications, and cleanup behavior.

This keeps sensor-specific logic in HomeKit when desired, while centralizing the alarm state machine in Home Assistant.

Dashboard Example

Zoned Security does not create a Lovelace dashboard automatically, but a compact testing view is useful while wiring automations. A typical dashboard groups the alarm panel and mode switches, zone switches, workflow helpers, and Logbook activity in separate sections:

Status

This is an early custom integration. It is not a certified alarm system and should not be used as the only safety-critical security layer.

Version 0.1.x is intended for one configured security system. The YAML schema is structured under systems for future expansion, but multiple concurrent systems are not a supported public contract yet.

Installation with HACS

This repository can be installed as a HACS custom repository.

1. Open HACS in Home Assistant.
2. Go to custom repositories.
3. Add https://github.com/aspaviento/homeassistant-zoned-security as an Integration.
4. Install Zoned Security.
5. Add a YAML configuration, for example by adapting examples/zoned_security.yaml.
6. Restart Home Assistant.

Zoned Security is currently YAML-based. After installing it from HACS, do not use Settings -> Devices & services -> Add integration for setup. Configure it in YAML instead.

Manual Installation

Copy custom_components/zoned_security into your Home Assistant custom_components directory, then add a YAML configuration.

For a package-based setup, copy examples/zoned_security.yaml to your Home Assistant packages directory and adapt it to your zones and notification service.

Restart Home Assistant after installing or changing the integration code.

Configuration

The integration is configured under the zoned_security YAML key.

Top-level options:

• systems: map of configured security systems. Version 0.1.x supports one public production system even though the schema is shaped for future expansion.

System options:

• name: display name for the alarm control panel.
• default: initial state. Accepted values are disarmed, unarmed, armed-home, armed-away, and armed-night.
• stored: whether the target alarm mode and zone states are persisted.
• modes: display names for home, away, and night mode switches.
• zones: list of zone definitions.
• helpers: helper switch definitions.
• notifications: optional Home Assistant notification service calls.

Zone options:

• name: display name for the zone switch and notification context.
• object_id: stable slug used to build the zone switch entity ID.

Helper options:

• name: display name for the helper switch.
• period: optional timer duration in seconds. Helper switches expose this as a period state attribute so dashboards can show the configured timing.
• auto_off: whether the helper turns itself off when the timer expires. The standard alarm helpers are designed to be transient.
• stored: reserved for helper persistence. Helpers are normally transient.

Notification options:

• service: Home Assistant notification service, such as notify.notify or a mobile-app notification service.
• title: notification title.
• message: base message.
• priority: optional notification priority passed as service data.
• sound: optional notification sound passed as service data.
• mute_seconds: per-notification throttle period.

Pushover Notifications

Zoned Security does not depend on Pushover, but it works well with Home Assistant's Pushover notification integration. This is useful when Home Assistant should send alarm notifications directly instead of routing that responsibility through HomeKit automations.

First configure Pushover in Home Assistant. Then reference the resulting notify service in notifications:

notifications:
  alarm:
    service: notify.pushover
    title: Security System
    message: Alarm activated
    priority: 1
    sound: siren
    mute_seconds: 60
  alarm_inhibited:
    service: notify.pushover
    title: Security System
    message: Alarm inhibited
    priority: 0
    mute_seconds: 60
  prealert:
    service: notify.pushover
    title: Security System
    message: Pre-alarm activated
    priority: 0
    mute_seconds: 60

When the delayed alarm expires without inhibition, the alarm notification is sent with additional context: mode, triggering zone, active zones, and time. When the alarm is manually inhibited, alarm_inhibited is sent with the same context when available, then the active zones are cleared.

Example Configuration

zoned_security:
  systems:
    main:
      name: Security System
      default: disarmed
      stored: true

      modes:
        away:
          name: Away
        night:
          name: Night
        home:
          name: Home

      zones:
        - name: Front Door
          object_id: front_door_zone
        - name: Patio
          object_id: patio_zone

      helpers:
        delay_alarm:
          name: Delay Alarm
          period: 60
          auto_off: true
          stored: false
        pre_alarm:
          name: Pre Alarm
          period: 60
          auto_off: true
          stored: false
        disable_alarm:
          name: Disable Alarm
          period: 90
          stored: false

      notifications:
        alarm:
          service: notify.notify
          title: Security System
          message: Alarm activated
          priority: 1
          mute_seconds: 60
        alarm_inhibited:
          service: notify.notify
          title: Security System
          message: Alarm inhibited
          priority: 0
          mute_seconds: 60
        prealert:
          service: notify.notify
          title: Security System
          message: Pre-alarm activated
          priority: 0
          mute_seconds: 60

Entities

For a system configured with the example above, the integration creates:

• alarm_control_panel.zoned_security
• switch.zoned_security_home_mode
• switch.zoned_security_away_mode
• switch.zoned_security_night_mode
• switch.zoned_security_delay_alarm
• switch.zoned_security_pre_alarm
• switch.zoned_security_disable_alarm
• one zone switch per configured zone, for example switch.zoned_security_front_door_zone

The alarm control panel exposes these attributes:

• target_state: the armed/disarmed target state.
• mode: home, away, night, or null.
• active_zones: current active zone names.

Services

Zoned Security does not currently register custom Home Assistant services.

Use the normal Home Assistant services for its entities:

• alarm_control_panel.alarm_arm_home
• alarm_control_panel.alarm_arm_away
• alarm_control_panel.alarm_arm_night
• alarm_control_panel.alarm_disarm
• switch.turn_on
• switch.turn_off

Workflow

Zoned Security is intentionally built as a small state machine plus helper switches. The integration owns the alarm mode, active zones, helper timers, and notifications. The user decides which automations turn zones on and which downstream actions should happen when helper switches change state.

Optional Pre-Alarm

pre_alarm can be used as a first-stage filter before a real zone trigger. This is useful when some sensors may create occasional false positives: the first activation can turn on pre_alarm, send the configured prealert notification, and auto-off after its configured period. A later activation, while the pre-alarm condition is still relevant, can then turn on the real zone switch.

This helper is optional. If a deployment does not need a two-step alarm model, sensor automations can trigger zones directly.

Zone Trigger and Delay

When the system is armed and a zone switch turns on, the alarm enters triggered. If the delay_alarm helper exists, Zoned Security turns it on and starts its configured timer.

During this delay window, a user or automation can turn on disable_alarm to manually inhibit the alarm. If the timer expires and disable_alarm is off, the integration sends the configured alarm notification with the mode, triggering zone, active zones, and time, then turns delay_alarm off.

Manual Inhibition

disable_alarm is evaluated when delay_alarm expires. If it is on, Zoned Security sends the configured alarm_inhibited notification with the mode, triggering zone, active zones, and time when that context is available. It then clears active zones and returns the system to its armed base state.

disable_alarm is not turned off by the delayed-alarm decision itself. It stays on until its own configured timer expires. This keeps external automations, such as HomeKit rules that react to delay_alarm turning off, able to observe that the alarm was inhibited.

Custom Actions

Home Assistant and HomeKit automations can react to any helper state change. Typical examples include starting a siren or turning on lights when delay_alarm expires without inhibition, sending an early warning when pre_alarm turns on, or showing a manual cancellation workflow while disable_alarm is active.

Data and Storage

When stored: true, Zoned Security stores the target alarm state and active zone states using Home Assistant's storage helpers. It does not store notification credentials. Notification credentials, if any, remain owned by the configured Home Assistant notification integration.

External References

This integration is inspired by a customized Homebridge alarm workflow based on the former homebridge-automation-switches security-system and automation switch primitives. The original repository is no longer available in its previous location, but archived documentation may still be useful for understanding the Homebridge behavior that motivated this project.

License

MIT

Notes

This integration is currently YAML-based and does not implement a Home Assistant config flow. The integration page will therefore show that it was not set up from the UI.