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Intro

Not everything that’s open needs your attention. A bathroom window on a warm afternoon is fine. The front door left unlocked overnight isn’t. A security alert is how you tell Zendo the difference. Pick an accessory, choose Warning or Critical, and while that accessory is open, unlocked, or detecting presence, Zendo highlights it in orange or red: on your floorplan, on the “Activity & Cameras” button at the bottom of the screen, and in the Activity & Cameras view. One look tells you that something needs attention, and what it is. When nothing is alerting, the app looks the way it normally does.
Security alerts change what you see in the app. They’re not an alarm system: Zendo doesn’t send a notification, sound a siren, or call anyone. To be told when you’re not looking at the app, send a push notification from your automation.

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Which accessories can raise an alert

You can set a security alert on: Smoke, CO, Gas & Water Leak Sensors work differently: they always alert, and there’s nothing to set. See Safety sensors always alert.

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Set an alert on an accessory

  1. Tap
  2. Tap “Settings”
  3. Tap “Edit Floorplan”
  4. Tap the accessory you want to configure
  5. Find the Security Alert section.
You have three options:
  • No Alert: nothing changes, and the accessory looks the way it always has. This is the default.
  • Warning: the accessory turns orange while it’s alerting.
  • Critical: the accessory turns red while it’s alerting.
Each accessory has a single setting, and it applies at any time of day. There’s no schedule, so a level that suits the night applies in the morning too.

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What you’ll see while an accessory is alerting

Three things are highlighted, in orange for Warning and red for Critical:
  • The “Activity & Cameras” button at the bottom of your floorplan changes to the icon of the alerting accessory and is highlighted in the same colour, in place of the usual teal shield, regardless of which floor you are currently viewing.
  • The accessory on your floorplan, in Security & Safety mode.
  • The room’s tile in the Activity & Cameras view, in both the Recent Activity and the All Accessories section.
As soon as the door closes, the lock locks, or the sensor stops detecting presence, the highlight disappears on its own. There’s nothing to clear or dismiss.

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Choose between Warning and Critical

Warning suits the things you want to notice, but that are often perfectly fine: a window left open, the garage door open in the middle of the day. Critical suits the things that should never be true without you knowing: the front door unlocked overnight, the side gate left open.
Take care with presence sensors. In a room people use all day, an alert keeps the “Activity & Cameras” button lit almost constantly, and an alert that’s on all the time stops being useful. Presence sensors work best where nobody normally goes: an outbuilding, a garage, or a storeroom.

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Safety sensors always alert

Smoke, CO, gas and water leak sensors don’t have this setting, and there’s nothing to set up: they always raise a critical alert, because a fire, a gas leak or a flood is something you should always be told about. Their configuration shows the same Security Alert section, with an explanation in place of the control.

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When several accessories are alerting at once

The “Activity & Cameras” button has room for one accessory, so it shows the most important one:
  1. A safety sensor, which always comes first.
  2. A Critical alert.
  3. A Warning alert.
When two accessories are at the same level, the one that changed most recently is shown. Nothing is hidden: every other alerting accessory stays highlighted on the floorplan and in the Activity & Cameras view. Only the button is limited to one.