Integrating BRDSC01 with Home Assistant

Coiaca Bridge BRDSC01 can be used to integrate your DSC Powerseries alarm system to Home Assistant, not only to control the panel like a virtual keyboard but also to get information from it, such the armed or disarmed status, opened or closed doors or windows or people moving in rooms that can be an exelent input (states changes) for your automations.

MQTT Alarm Control Panel and Binary Sensor components are used to integrate Coiaca BRDSC01 to Home Assistant. Is required that you to have the MQTT integration up and running with a MQTT broker installed and configured on your Home Assistant.

BRDSC01 on Home Assistant Alarm

For each partition, a mqtt platform should be configured under alarm_control_panel component.
MQTT messages payloads for disarming, arming home (stay) or arming away are D, S, A respectively, preceded by the partition number. For instance, the command for disarming partition 1 is 1S.
Systems with only one partition should be configured as Partition 1

The following is an example of the configuration.yaml file:

alarm_control_panel:
  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Partition 1"
    state_topic: "DSC01xxxxxxxxxx/Partition1"
    command_topic: "DSC01xxxxxxxxxx/cmd"
    availability_topic: "DSC0xxxxxxxxxx/Status"
    payload_disarm: "1D"
    payload_arm_home: "1S"
    payload_arm_away: "1A"
  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Partition 2"
    state_topic: "DSC01xxxxxxxxxx/Partition2"
    command_topic: "DSC01xxxxxxxxxx/cmd"
    availability_topic: "DSC010000000001/Status"
    payload_disarm: "2D"
    payload_arm_home: "2S"
    payload_arm_away: "2A"

And for displaying trouble and zones statuses, a binary sensor should be configured for each zone. configuration.yaml file should look as follows:

binary_sensor:
  - platform: mqtt
    name: Trouble
    state_topic: "DSC01xxxxxxxxxx/Trouble"
    device_class: "problem"
    payload_on: "1"
    payload_off: "0"
  - platform: mqtt
    name: Main Door
    state_topic: "DSC01xxxxxxxxxx/Zone1"
    device_class: "door"
    payload_on: "1"
    payload_off: "0"
  - platform: mqtt
    name: IRP Living Room
    state_topic: "DSC01xxxxxxxxxx/Zone2"
    device_class: "motion"
    payload_on: "1"
    payload_off: "0"
Binary sensors

This example uses the default parameters the BRDSC01 is shipped from factory with. You should replace “DSC01xxxxxxxxxx” with the deviceID of your unit.

Depending on the used interface on Home Assistant groups.yaml or lovelace.yaml files may need to be updated in order to display components.

On the device

You need to configure the BRDSC01 to connect to your MQTT broker. For doing so, specify the following parameter in the device configuration screen:

– MQTT server: The URL or IP address of your MQTT broker. If you are using the build in Home Assistant broker, this is the same address of your Home Assistant. The connection to this server is unsecure. To use the device with a secure connection (TLS 1.2) “Force all traffic through this secure connection” option should be used. (See below)
– MQTT server port (insecure): Is the port MQTT server listens for non secured connections (usual and default value is 1883)
– MQTT user: The username for connecting to MQTT server. This parameter is optional since some brokers may not require it. If you are using the build in homeassistant broker, this parameter is usually “homeassistant”
– MQTT password: The password for connecting to MQTT server. This parameter is optional since some brokers may not require it. If you are using the build in homeassistant broker, this parameter is the legacy API password.
– MQTT Client ID: Is the unique identifier that the device will use to connect to the MQTT broker. Is recommended not to modify this parameter.

Additionally, the Access Code parameter needs to be configured on the device to use the MQTT Alarm Control Panel component. This Is the access code required to disarm the DSC Alarm system and may be also required to arm based on panel configuration.
It´s a good practice to configure a user code on the alarm system to be used exclusively with the device as Access Code in order to be able to identify the usage on the alarm system log.

Securing connection with TLS

Secured connection are handled on the Remote Management MQTT broker only, so in order to secure the connection to your MQTT broker you should enable the Remote Management feature and set the parameter “Force all traffic through the secure connection” to YES.

MQTT server parameters should be configured as follows:

– Remote Management MQTT server: The server the device will connect to listen for Remote Management commands and publish command results. The connection to this server mandatory secure (TLS 1.2)
– Remote Management MQTT server port (TLS): Is the port Remote Management MQTT server listens for secured connections (usual and default value is 8883)
– Remote Management MQTT user: Username device will use to connect to Remote Management broker
– Remote Management MQTT password: Password device will use to connect to Remote Management broker
– Force all traffic through the secure connection: set this parameter to YES (enabled)

Back to Documentation index page