How To Add Ecolink Wireless Audio Detector to Home Assistant

In this guide, I’ll show you how to add an Ecolink Wireless Audio Detector to Home Assistant. I will also show you how to create a basic automation that will alert you via Home Assistant phone notifications if smoke is detected.

In terms of cost, an audio detector is a great alternative to purchasing zwave smoke detectors. For most homes, purchasing a single audio detector is all you’d need.

This guide was updated on 7/20/21.

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How Do Audio Detectors work?

Audio detectors “listen” for the smoke alarm or CO siren to go off. Once you pair one of these to Home Assistant or SmartThings, the number of automations can be endless.

For example, if the smoke alarm goes off, you could have it change your Hub bulbs to red, broadcast a message via Google Home, or send you a Home Assistant notification alerting you if you are away from home.

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Where do you install Audio Detectors?

Ecolink Audio Detectors should be mounted to the ceiling 6-12 inches away from an existing smoke alarm. Ideally, you’d want this in a central location that is most prone to fires, such as the kitchen or laundry room.

However, during testing, I was able to pick up sirens from 20+ feet away. But for safety sake, I would keep it as close to an alarm as you can.

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How Many Audio Detectors do you need?

Technically, you only need 1. Most smoke alarms will get triggered if they detect other smoke alarms going off. Which means, it doesn’t really matter where you install it, as long as it’s nearby to a smoke alarm.

If you have a multiple story home, then it might be smart to purchase one for each story.

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How To Add Pair Ecolink Audio Detector to Home Assistant

1. Unbox your Ecolink zwave plus wireless audio detector.
2. Press the button on the side of the sensor to take the lid off.
3. Remove the pull tab from the battery. You should see a green light start blinking.
4. Inside the detector, you’ll see a very small button located next to the switch. Click that to put the detector into “learning mode”. (See image below)
5. Open Home Assistant. Then click Configuration > Integrations > Z-Wave JS.
6. Click Configure, then Add Node.
7. 
8. Place the top cover back on the audio detector.

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Automation Overview

Now that your Ecolink audio detector has been paired to your Home Assistant via zwave, it’s time to test it out. To do this, we’ll need to create the following automation. My automation example is as follows:

If smoke alarm is detected, then send my phone a notification.

Audio detectors don’t detect smoke, however they pick up sound frequencies based on whether or not it detects smoke or CO2. A CO2 frequency has a different ID than smoke. I’m not entirely sure if CO2 detection works with the ecolink in HA, so I’m just

For the smoke alarm automation, we are looking at the entity binary_sensor.ecolink_z_wave_plus_firefighter_smoke_alarm_smoke_detected. When this changes from 0 to 2, that means it detects the smoke alarm siren, which in turn will trigger our Home Assistant automation.

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To Create the Automation:

I previously used the Numeric State of 2 for this, but that stopped working in Z-Wave JS. So, I’m just detecting if smoke state goes from Off to On. You can paste your entity into Developer Tools > States > Filter to see the available states,

1. Go to Configuration > Automations.
2. Create a new automation and give it name like “Smoke Alarm”
3. Under Trigger Type, select State.
   1. From ‘off’ to ‘on’
4. Entity: binary_sensor.ecolink_z_wave_plus_firefighter_smoke_alarm_smoke_detected

Then, create an action.

1. Action Type: Call Service
2. Service: notify.mobile_app_pixel_5_danny
3. Action:
   1. Message: Smoke detected!
   2. Title: Fire alarm going off!
4. Then, hold simply press the test button on your fire alarm when the Ecolink sensor is nearby. After the third beep – it should successfully trigger the automation and you’ll receive a notification.

Full YAML:

alias: Smoke Alarm
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.ecolink_z_wave_plus_firefighter_smoke_alarm_smoke_detected
    from: 'off'
    to: 'on'
condition: []
action:
  - service: notify.mobile_app_pixel_5_danny
    data:
      message: Smoke detected!
      title: Fire alarm going off!
mode: single

Note: After creating the automation, you may need to reboot your Home Assistant instance if you don’t receive a notification right away.

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Test the Automation

There are two ways to test this. You should test both ways. The first way just to make sure the automation fires when the state changes, and the 2nd way to ensure it picks up on the smoke alarm siren.

Test 1: Developer Tools

Developer Tools > States. Paste the entity binary_sensor.ecolink_z_wave_plus_firefighter_smoke_alarm_smoke_detected, change the state to on, and click Set State.

Test 2: Fire Alarm

To test if your Ecolink correctly changes state, simply press and hold the test button on your nearest smoke alarm. After 3 beeps, the state should change and you should receive your phone notification.

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Wrapping Up

Hopefully this guides helps you integrate an audio detector in Home Assistant! Like I said, this is a great alternative to smart smoke detectors and is very customizable.