In reply to a post by Pheasant:

There’s a couple of Teltonika routers in the M2M sphere that would also potentially suit the OP as they likewise have external GPIO interfaces, specifically for M2M market. Not sure on price though.

The RUT906 that might do the job (with an external mpu) is £240 incl vat

Edited by fourtytwo (Thu 14-Sep-23 10:46:19)

Thanks for the chat it always helps to get other peoples ideas on board
I am going to have a look at spoofing the existing router using an ESP8266 connecting over WIFI, I already have one talking to the router from my solar system so I know how to use them and they have plenty of i/o ports for alarm interface. It's just a case of reliably getting the router to send an SMS from it
Again many thanks for the discussion/ideas

If it were me, I would replace the old alarm panel - you could go with a Texecom Premier Elite and a SmartCom which would connect via ethernet or WiFi.

The panel is about £60; the SmartCom will cost a bit more, but this is a great solution (I run a variant of this solution myself).

Replacing the panel is not difficult...and you clearly don't have a monitored solution (as you're looking to change out the dialer yourself) so no maintainer to worry about.

Rather than using the same SIM for data and SMS, or a SIM for each it might be worth looking at companies offering SMS APIs - you only need a small single-board computer which would perform an API call from the alarm signals.

Even though you will be paying per SMS it would be a lot less than a second SIM.

How do you want this "triggered SMS" to be triggered? Teltonika routers have input and output pins and SMS functionality with an API https://wiki.teltonika-networks.com/view/RUTX50_Mobi...

As long as the router allows telnet or ssh access and accepts AT commands, then you should be able to send SMS through that interface. You would just need a bit of DIY code on a Raspberry PI or similar computer to trigger the SMS.

Or you stick OpenWRT on the 4G router and then use their SMS interface
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/luci-app-luci-app-sms-to...

In reply to a post by JonRennie:

If it were me, I would replace the old alarm panel - you could go with a Texecom Premier Elite and a SmartCom which would connect via ethernet or WiFi.

The panel is about £60; the SmartCom will cost a bit more, but this is a great solution (I run a variant of this solution myself).

Replacing the panel is not difficult...and you clearly don't have a monitored solution (as you're looking to change out the dialer yourself) so no maintainer to worry about.

I am surprised the panel is only £60, I have certainly seen the comms unit around £120, not sure the panel would be compatible with my IR sensors & bell box that may be an additional cost. The idea had crossed my mind but I was put off by the cost more than anything although a new panel with an smps to replace the present energy wasting hot box would be nice

In reply to a post by tdw42:

Rather than using the same SIM for data and SMS, or a SIM for each it might be worth looking at companies offering SMS APIs - you only need a small single-board computer which would perform an API call from the alarm signals.

Even though you will be paying per SMS it would be a lot less than a second SIM.

I have only one concern with this otherwise excellent idea and that is server reliability and ongoing availability, no good if they decide to pull the plug and I don't realize til it's to late.

In reply to a post by jpm:

How do you want this "triggered SMS" to be triggered? Teltonika routers have input and output pins and SMS functionality with an API https://wiki.teltonika-networks.com/view/RUTX50_Mobi...

Unfortunatly reading the manual it only seems to have an sms triggered outout pin, no mention of an input trigger (alarm) generating an sms unless I missed it.

In reply to a post by essex_man:

As long as the router allows telnet or ssh access and accepts AT commands, then you should be able to send SMS through that interface. You would just need a bit of DIY code on a Raspberry PI or similar computer to trigger the SMS.

Or you stick OpenWRT on the 4G router and then use their SMS interface
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/luci-app-luci-app-sms-to...

I have tried very hard to access something useful through the Telnet interface to no avail, it is completely un-documented but seems to be very basic and not related to 4G at all so no joy there
I don't think I would consider openwrt, to much chance of bricking the router (ok scared lols).

Edited by fourtytwo (Thu 14-Sep-23 16:24:49)