pyg90alarm 1.16.0

G90 Alarm system protocol

Description

Python package to control G90-based alarm systems.

Many manufacturers sell such systems under different brands - Golden Security, PST, Kerui and others. Those are cheap low-end systems, typically equipped with WiFi and possible GSM interfaces for connectivity, and support different range of peripherals:

• Wired and wireless sensors

• Relays (switches)

… and probably others

The package implements asynchronous I/O over most of code paths using asyncio.

Disclaimer

The author has no affiliation or any relationship to any of the hardware vendors in question. The code has been created upon many trial and error iterations.

Motivation

The primary motivation creating the code is the comfort of using the security system - the mobile applications provided by the vendor, called “Carener”, is slow and crashes sometimes. Instead, it would be awesome to have the system integrated into larger ecosystems, like Home Assistant, HomeKit and such. Hence, the code has been created to interact with the security system using Python, and it opens up a way for further integrations.

Supported hardware

It mightn’t possible to list every system supported by the package due to manufacturers name the products differently. Here is the list of hardware known to work with the package:

• PST G90B Plus

And the list of sensors, actual set of device should be notable larger as many of other manufacturers produce similar items. The names in parenthesis are taken from the alarm system documentation, for example, Home Alarm GB90-Plus.

• Wired PIR sensors

• Wireless PIR sensors (WPD01, WMS08)

• Door/window sensors (WDS07, WRDS01)

• Water leak sensors (LSTC01)

• Smoke sensors (WSD02)

• Gas sensors (WGD01)

• Switches/relays (JDQ)

Basically, the alarm system uses 433 MHz communications for the wireless devices using EV1527, PT2262 protocols. The mobile application also mentions some devices using 2.4GHz, although details of the protocols haven’t been identified as no such hardware has been available for experimentation.

Known caveats

• Wireless shutter sensor (WRDS01) doesn’t send anything on sensor closed, only when opened. In contrast, WDS07 wireless door sensor does both.

• Wireless relays (at least JDQ) use same RF code for switching on and off, when configured in toggle mode. That means a RF signal repeater will make controlling such relays unpredictable, since the code will be sent more than once.

• Low battery notifications for wireless sensors (at least for WDS07 and WSD02) are often missing, either due to the sensors not sending them or the device doesn’t receive those.

• Wired sensors toggle on line state change, i.e. those aren’t limited to have normal closed (NC) or normal open (NO) contacts only. Best used with NC contact sensors though, since an intruder cutting the line will trigger the alarm.

Enabling device notifications

There is a hidden device capability to send protocol notifications over the WiFi interface. The notifications are done using broadcast UDP packets with source/destination ports being 45000:12901 (non-configurable), and sent when the device has IP address of its WiFi interface set to 10.10.10.250. That is the same IP the device will allocate to the WiFi interface when AP (access point is enabled). Please note enabling the AP is not required for the notifications to be sent, only the IP address matters. Likely the firmware does a check internally and enables those when corresponding IP address is found on the WiFi interface.

Please see protocol documentation for further details on the device notifications.

Depending on your network setup, ensuring the 10.10.10.250 IP address is allocated to the WiFi interface of the device might be as simple as DHCP reservation. Please check the documentation of your networking gear on how to set the IP address allocation up.

Note

Since the IP address trick above isn’t something the device exposes to the user, the functionality might change or even cease functioning upon a firmware upgrade!

Note

The device notifications in question are fully local with no dependency on the cloud or Internet connection on the device.

Note

If IP address trick doesn’t work for you by a reason, the package will still be able to perform the key functions - for example, arming or disarming the panel, or reading the list of sensors. However, the sensor status will not be reflected and those will always be reported as inactive, since there is no way to read their state in a polled manner.

To work that limitation around the package now supports simulating device notifications from periodically polling the history it records - the simulation works only for the alerts, not notifications (e.g. notifications include low battery events and alike). This also requires the particular alert to be enabled in the mobile application, otherwise it won’t be recorded in the history.

Quick start

pip install pyg90alarm

Documentation

Please see online documentation for details on the protocol, its security, supported commands and the API package provides.