Out-of-the-box includion of a few automation Blueprints for synchroning virtual alarm control panel with some popular Z-Wave and Zigbee alarm control panels (i.e. physical keypads)

[Hedda]

Please consider including out-of-the-box option to synchronize virtual alarm control panel with some popular Z-Wave and Zigbee alarm control panels (i.e. physical keypads), like example the Ring Alarm Keypad V2 (Z-Wave based) and the frient Intelligent Keypad (Zigbee based).

Not sure if could simply repurpose to further generize and standardize any of the existing Blueprint published in the Home Assistant's Blueprint Exchange community, however as you probably are already aware of, there are automation Blueprints available to sync Ring Alarm Keypad V2 and the Zigbee based with Alarmo. See example:

• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/synchronize-ring-alarm-keypad-v2-with-alarmo/349461/

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/alarm-keypad-frient-kepzb-110-for-alarmo-or-other-systems-with-zha/783075/

I think that including one or two of those out-of-the-box would be great as a proof-of-concept from an end-user's point-of-view. Especially if tested to work with popular keypads compatible with the officially built-in Z-Wave and ZHA integration in Home Assistant.

Checklist

• I checked for similar existing requests (both open and closed) before posting.
• My request is generic, other users may benefit from it too.

Proposal

Could maybe in the UI somehow be made to work similar to the existing "Alarm Master" feature in Alarmo b ut it is instead meant to fully synchronize with a specific area and mirror the state of the virtual alarm control panel.

Additional info

For the record I am successfully using the above mentioned Blueprint to synchronize the Ring Alarm Keypad v2 with Alarmo.

There are many more automation Blueprints for Home Assistant to syncronize various keypads, not only devices paired with the officially built-in Z-Wave and ZHA integration but also with MQTT and Zigbee2MQTT. See examples:

• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/zigbee2mqtt-sync-keypad-and-alarm-control-panel-states/345311/

• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/simple-blueprint-zigbee2mqtt-frient-keypad-for-alarm-control-panel-ex-alarmo/779544/

• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/zigbee2mqtt-control-alarmo-via-keypad/420016

• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/ring-keypad-status-lights/715317/

• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/ring-keypad-v2-sounds-script-zwavejs/680399/

PS: Slightly off-topic but FYI and for reference, there is also a popular automation Blueprint to control Alarmo with Keymaster codes:

• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/control-alarmo-with-keymaster-codes/789806

[nielsfaber]

Alarmo should not include any code for supporting specific hardware, it should only communicate with HA entities to be generically usable and keeping the code lean and maintainable.
The mentioned keypads (and the integrations providing them) all have different methods for communication, so specific 'drivers' would have to be implemented and supported in Alarmo.
Which comes down to me having to spend a ton of effort writing code and having to purchase all these devices for testing.
Why would I?
In my opinion, HA should instead provide a generic model for all such keypads. For example, a new entity type like 'keypad' (or better even: 'alarm_control_panel', which they actually are), with predefined methods/actions and states. This would make it much easier for me to provide seamless integration.

What is the issue with blueprints?
They pretty much fit the 'out of the box' experience, users are able to find and install them with very few problems reported.
This also boosts the open-source community, since anyone can take the initiative of creating and maintaining a blueprint to control Alarmo via a certain keypad.

So in short: this would require extra code which I am not willing to write. Blueprints are a fine alternative.

PS: I made this blueprint for my own use, it cost me a couple of hours to set up and it still works fine without any changes made in >2 years.