A local smart home alarm built with Raspberry Pi Zero WH, featuring PIR motion detection, LED and buzzer alarm feedback, Zigbee/MQTT door monitoring, camera support, a web dashboard and custom PCB design.
This project was developed as a group project in Electrical Engineering.
Contributors:
- [neez11]
- [abbefakih]
- [MarcusAtaseven]
This project is a smart home alarm prototype designed to run locally without cloud services.
It combines embedded hardware, wireless communication, backend logic, a web-based dashboard, PCB design, and a 3D-printed enclosure into one complete system.
The system is built around a Raspberry Pi Zero WH and can:
- detect motion using a PIR sensor
- detect door/window events using a Zigbee sensor
- trigger local alarm feedback using LED and buzzer
- log events in the backend
- show live status in a web dashboard
- display a camera feed during alarm events
- run locally without relying on external cloud platforms
- Raspberry Pi Zero WH
- PIR sensor
- LED
- buzzer
- 220 Ω resistors
- SONOFF SNZB-04P Zigbee door/window sensor
- Zigbee USB adapter
- micro-USB OTG adapter
- Raspberry Pi camera module
- custom PCB
- 3D-printed enclosure
The project is divided into the following parts:
- PIR sensor
- LED
- buzzer
- Raspberry Pi GPIO connections
- custom PCB
- Zigbee door/window sensor
- Zigbee USB gateway
- Zigbee2MQTT
- MQTT messaging
- Python backend
- alarm logic
- event logging
- camera service
- REST API
- React/Vite frontend
- live system status
- event timeline
- control buttons
- camera view
- local hosting on Raspberry Pi
- Nginx as web server / reverse proxy
The PCB was designed in KiCad based on the local hardware part of the system.
The PCB includes the local electronics for:
- Raspberry Pi header
- PIR sensor connection
- LED connection
- buzzer connection
- resistors
The camera and Zigbee door sensor are handled separately and are not mounted directly on the PCB.
A custom enclosure was designed to make the prototype more compact and easier to demonstrate.
- The Raspberry Pi continuously monitors the PIR sensor and listens for door sensor events.
- If motion is detected or the door opens while the system is armed:
- the alarm state is triggered
- LED and buzzer are activated
- the event is logged
- the web dashboard updates automatically
- the camera can be used for visual verification
- The user can monitor and control the system through the local web interface.
The door/window sensor is not connected directly to the GPIO pins.
Instead, it communicates wirelessly over Zigbee.
The communication flow is:
Door Sensor -> Zigbee -> Zigbee USB Adapter -> Zigbee2MQTT -> MQTT -> Python Backend -> Frontend
The PIR sensor, LED, and buzzer are connected locally to the Raspberry Pi.
The web interface is used to monitor and control the system in real time.
It shows:
- alarm status
- motion status
- door status
- LED status
- buzzer status
- camera status
- event log
- control buttons for arm / disarm / reset / test
The system was designed as a local smart home alarm prototype with a focus on practical testing, modular design, and local monitoring without cloud services.