How to Create an Alarm Rule

An alarm rule says what raises an alarm, how serious it is, and who is told. Alarms here supplement your approved smoke, carbon monoxide and other safety systems. They never replace them.

Before you start

• You need the Manage IoT Alarms right. Without it you do not see the Alarms tab in the settings.
• To have people told in steps, create an escalation policy first, or create one from the rule. See Alarm Escalation Explained.

Create a rule

1. Go to Settings → Devices (IoT) → Alarms → Rules and choose New rule.
2. Give it a Rule name.
3. Under What raises it, choose A reading is outside its limit, Something happens, A device stops responding or Raised by an automation. An automation decides when a rule of the last kind is raised: there is nothing to watch.
4. For the other three, choose what the rule Applies to: One device, A room, A whole site, Every device of a type or Every device, then pick the device, room, site or type.
5. Choose What to watch. For a reading, also choose how to Compare (goes above, goes below, becomes, stops being or changes at all) and the Value.
6. Set the timings:
   • For a reading: Reset margin means the alarm re-arms only once the reading is back past the limit by that much. Must last (minutes) raises the alarm only if the problem lasts that long. Clear after it has been normal for (minutes) stops an alarm from clearing and re-raising when a reading hovers at its limit.
   • For a device that stops responding: Silent for (minutes).
   • For something that happens: Clear by itself after (minutes), at least 1. The alarm still waits to be acknowledged.
7. Choose the Severity: Critical (someone must respond now; it passes quiet hours), Major, Minor or Info. A new rule starts at Major.
8. Write the Alarm title (needed, up to 200 characters) and, if you like, the Message and What to do about it (up to 500 characters each). To add a value such as the device's name, choose its chip under the title or message, for example {{device.name}}.
9. Under Who is told, choose an escalation policy, or keep Built-in default. To make a policy now, choose New policy.
10. Decide on Allow people to shelve this alarm, Watch only and Turned on. Watch only records the rule's alarms but tells nobody; it switches Turned on off, and the other way round.
11. Choose Save rule.

Check it before you rely on it

• Choose Replay history to see how often the rule would have raised an alarm. Set From and To (it starts at the last 30 days) and choose Replay. It shows how many alarms it would have raised on how many devices, the busiest ten minutes, a chart of Alarms per day and how long a typical alarm lasted. "Nothing was sent. This is a replay of stored history." It uses your unsaved changes.
• Choose Preview who is told to see how many devices the rule matches and who each step reaches. It warns "Step 1 has nobody who can be told." when a step reaches nobody, and when someone cannot see all of the devices. A person who cannot see a device is not told about its alarms: give them access to the device.

Create rules from a template

1. Open Devices (IoT) → Automations → Templates. This needs the Manage IoT Automations right too.
2. Choose a template that includes an alarm rule, such as Freezer too warm, Smoke or carbon monoxide, Door left open or Device offline, and choose Choose.
3. Fill in what it asks for, choose Review, check What this will create, then choose Review and create.

Everything a template makes starts turned off, so you can check it first. Turn a rule on with its switch in Settings → Devices (IoT) → Alarms → Rules.

On KamoMobile

KamoMobile has the same rule editor: open Devices (IoT), then Settings → Alarms → Rules, and choose New rule. You can also reach Alarm rules from the bottom of the Alarms screen.

Result

The rule is listed with what raises it, its severity, the number of devices it watches and how many alarms are open. Its switch turns it on and off. When it raises an alarm, the alarm appears on the Alarms tab and people are told as its policy says.

If it doesn't work

• "Another item already has this name." Choose a different name for the rule.
• "This rule matches no devices yet." The rule is saved, but it watches nothing. Check the devices you chose, and that they report what you picked.
• Turning a Critical rule off, or lowering its severity, asks for your password.

Good to know

Alarms depend on device vendors, networks and power, and can be delayed or fail. See IoT Is Not a Safety System.