Smart Home Monitor harnesses your smart devices for customizable home security and monitoring, giving you peace of mind and keeping your home safe and sound.
Read below for an overview and watch this video walkthrough.
- Alarm states: Arm (Away), Arm (Home), Disarm
- Configure Security alerts
- Configure Smoke alerts
- Configure Leaks alerts
- Configure Custom alerts
Example Smart Home Monitor alert
Monitor your home using Smart Home Monitor
What happens during an Incident
- Set up event-based video clip recording
- View video clips during active incidents
- View clips from past incidents
- Download video clips (Android)
- Delete video clips
Additional Smart Home Monitor features
Configure Smart Home Monitor
- Go to the Dashboard
- Tap Smart Home Monitor
- Tap the gear icon
When configuring Smart Home Monitor, you will be prompted to set rules for different alarm states:
Arm (Away): The home is unoccupied and you want monitoring by all sensors.
Arm (Home): The home is occupied and you want monitoring by select sensors.
Disarm: You want to disarm all monitoring and alarms.
Arm (Away) and Arm (Home) alarm states can be triggered from the Smart Home Monitor main view. Tap the buttons to switch between alarm states or to disarm alarms.
You can also automate alarm states through Routines (e.g., automatically put your home in Arm (Away) when you leave the house).
Configure Security alerts
- Go to the Dashboard
- Tap Smart Home Monitor
- Tap the gear icon
- Tap Security
- Configure Armed/Away Intrusion Sensors
- Tap Next
- Configure Armed/Home Intrusion Sensors
- Tap Next
- Configure the following alarms and notifications:
- Text & Push Notifications
- Audio Notifications
- Alert with Sirens
- Alert with Lights
- Set up video recording by tapping Select Cameras
- Tap Done
- When configuration is complete, a success message appears
Configure Smoke alerts
- Go to the Dashboard
- Tap Smart Home Monitor
- Tap the gear icon
- Tap Smoke
- Configure Monitored devices
- Configure the following alarms and notifications:
- Text & Push Notifications
- Audio Notifications
- Alert with Sirens
- Alert with Lights
- Set up video recording by tapping Select Cameras
- Configure Actions (e.g., unlock doors)
- Tap Done
- When configuration is complete, a success message appears
Configure Leaks alerts
- Go to the Dashboard
- Tap Smart Home Monitor
- Tap the gear icon
- Tap Leaks
- Configure Monitored devices
- Configure the following alarms and notifications:
- Text & Push Notifications
- Audio Notifications
- Alert with Sirens
- Alert with Lights
- Set up video recording by tapping Select Cameras
- Configure Actions (e.g., close valves and turn off switches)
- Tap Done
- When configuration is complete, a success message appears
Configure Custom alerts
- Go to the Dashboard
- Tap Smart Home Monitor
- Tap the gear icon
- Tap Custom
- Tap New monitoring rule
- Tap What kind of device do you want to use? to select device(s) for monitoring your home
- Select a device type
- Tap to select sensor(s) of that type
- Tap Done
- Configure What do you want to monitor? (options vary depending on sensor)
- Configure How frequently? to set when you want to be notified
- Configure More options to adjust notifications according to Mode, time, or day of the week
- Tap Next
- Configure the following alarms and notifications:
- Text & Push Notifications
- Audio Notifications
- Alert with Sirens
- Alert with Lights
- Set up video recording by tapping Select Cameras
- Tap Next
- Optional: Toggle Edit rule name to rename the rule
- Tap Done
- When configuration is complete, a success message appears and the rule name lists under Custom
- Tap Done again
Example Smart Home Monitor alert
There are many things you can do with Smart Home Monitor: Get a text message when the door opens and you’re away, close a water valve when a leak is detected, record a video when motion is detected, and more.
Go here for a step-by-step walkthrough of how to set up a Smart Home Monitor alert.
Monitor your home using Smart Home Monitor
- Go to the Dashboard
This is how Smart Home Monitor looks when everything at home is OK. With one quick glance, you can rest assured that all is well.
The status of Security, Smoke, and Leaks alerts (if configured) will appear.
Arm (Away) and Arm (Home) alarm states can be triggered from the Smart Home Monitor main view. Tap the buttons to switch between alarm states or to disarm alarms.
What happens during an incident
This is how Smart Home Monitor looks when an incident occurs.
Smart Home Monitor will report Total Incidents, and the alarm categories will indicate what type of incident occurred.
For example, if a door opened, Security will turn from green to red and a View alert message will appear.
View an incident
Tap View alert.
Some or all of the following time-stamped details will be available (depending on your configurations):
- Type of alarm (Security, Smoke, Leaks, Custom)
- Name of sensor that detected motion, contact, water, smoke, etc.
- Thumbnail of video clip (tap to view)
- Name of camera that recorded clip
- Confirmation that contacts were alerted
- Confirmation that alarms, sirens, and lights were triggered
You will have the option to Mute Sirens or to Dismiss the incident entirely.
Dismiss an incident
- Tap View alert
- Tap Dismiss
- Tap Yes to confirm
You will also have the option to check the box saying This was a false alarm. This is for internal tracking and helps us improve Smart Home Monitor.
Video and Smart Home Monitor
Smart Home Monitor enables recording of video clips during events defined by you. Video records only when these events or incidents occur, giving you greater security and privacy. Intelligent buffering on Samsung SmartCam and D-Link cameras allows video to start recording 10 seconds prior to the start of the incident. Netgear Arlo cameras do not support intelligent buffering and will begin recording video as soon as they are triggered. Note: You can only select up to 10 cameras within Smart Home Monitor.
This will be a premium paid feature of Smart Home Monitor, but all users can currently enjoy it for free.
Find more general information about video and SmartThings on our Video FAQ.
Set up event-based video clip recording
Configure any alarm to trigger video recording using a connected camera:
- Go to the Dashboard
- Tap Smart Home Monitor
- Tap the gear icon
- Tap the alert type you want to configure
- Scroll to “Capture video from these cameras”
- Tap Select Cameras
- Tap Select cameras
- Check the box for the camera(s) you wish to use
- Tap Done
- Tap to set the recorded clip length (30 seconds, 1 minute, or 2 minutes)
- Tap Done
- Tap Done again
- Tap Done to finalize configuration
View video clips during active incidents
When there is an incident, tap View alert to see a thumbnail of the recorded video clip and the name of the camera that recorded it.
Tap the video thumbnail to view the clip.
Note: If you respond immediately to an active incident, the video clip may still be in the process of recording when you try to view it. A thumbnail will not appear until the video is done recording. The clip will not be viewable until recording is complete. You can view live streaming video from the camera at any time through Things.
View clips from past incidents
- Go to the Dashboard
- Tap Smart Home Monitor
- Swipe left twice or tap to view History
- Select the past incident
- Tap the video thumbnail to view the clip
Download video clips (Android)
Android users can download recorded video clips for active and past incidents. iOS support for this feature is coming soon.
To download a video clip:
- Go to the Dashboard
- Tap Smart Home Monitor
- Tap View alert to open an active incident, or
Tap History to select a past incident - Below the video thumbnail, tap the download button
The video clip will then download to your phone. Videos are saved as MP4 files.
Delete video clips
To delete a video clip:
- Go to the Dashboard
- Tap Smart Home Monitor
- Tap View alert to open an active incident, or
Tap History to select a past incident - Below the video thumbnail, tap the delete button
- Confirm deletion (this cannot be undone)
Additional Smart Home Monitor features
From the Smart Home Monitor main view, you can swipe or tap to view:
Right Now:
Shows current activity and status of devices configured for Security alarms.
History:
Shows recent activity and past incidents.
View past incidents (including video clips) by tapping. This will also show which device(s) detected activity, when the incident occurred, and when the incident was dismissed.