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kidde_cc1101

Disclaimer

None of the information/code in this repository is suitable for real-world use in life safety applications. It is for educational/informational purposes only.

License

Unlicense. See UNLICENSE. Where applicable, any copyrights and patents relating to the protocol itself supersede this.

Introduction

This repo contains the result of my reverse engineering of the 433MHz protocol used by Kidde KN-COSM-B-RF smoke/CO alarms. It is not known whether other "Wireless Interconnect" models use the same/similar protocol as I do not own them.

The protocol is rather simple - no encryption or obfuscation is used and there are only a few distinct commands. The most mysterious part of it is the register settings used in the TI CC1101 radios. There are 40+ 8-bit registers on the CC1101, so simply guessing them seemed out of the question (for me, anyways).

Instead, a cheap logic analyzer was connected between the PIC16F883 and CC1101 on a first-generation Wink Hub, and PulseView's CC1101 decoder was used to make sense of the captured SPI data.

Files

The following files are contained within this repo:

Protocol

The data coming from the CC1101 can be described like so:

 struct kidde_pkt {  
   uint8_t address;  
   uint8_t command;  
   uint8_t suffix[2];  
   uint8_t rssi;  
   uint8_t crc_lqi;  
 };  
  • address: equivalent to the DIP switches located in the smoke detector's battery compartment
  • command: one of TEST, HUSH, CO, SMOKE, or BATTERY, described in more detail below
  • suffix: a fixed value of 0x9655 (YMMV - I only have a sample size of 1)
  • rssi: the signal strength of the received packet
  • crc_lqi: MSB represents CRC OK, lower 7 bits represent link quality

The rssi and crc_lqi are not sent over the air - they are appended to each packet in the RX FIFO by the CC1101 chip per the register settings.

The command field will contain one of the following:

 #define KIDDE_COMMAND (0x80)  
 #define KIDDE_TEST (KIDDE_COMMAND | 0x00)  
 #define KIDDE_HUSH (KIDDE_COMMAND | 0x01)  
 #define KIDDE_CO (KIDDE_COMMAND | 0x02)  
 #define KIDDE_SMOKE (KIDDE_COMMAND | 0x03)  
 #define KIDDE_BATTERY (KIDDE_COMMAND | 0x0D)  

In practice, all commands appear to have the MSB set (KIDDE_COMMAND above). However, detectors (and Wink) will respond to commands without the MSB set. The Wink Hub does not acknowledge BATTERY without the MSB set.

  • KIDDE_TEST: sent by the detector when the test button is pressed
  • KIDDE_HUSH: sent by the detector when the test button is held while an alarm is active
  • KIDDE_CO: sent by the detector when CO is detected
  • KIDDE_SMOKE: sent by the detector when smoke is detected
  • KIDDE_BATTERY: periodically sent by the detector if the battery is low

The detectors both send and receive commands. If a single detector goes off, other detectors within range will start alarming as well. The exception to this appears to be the BATTERY command.

The HUSH command, when received by an alarming detector, should silence the alarm. I had mixed results when attempting to silence an active alarm by transmitting this command.

A detector will only respond to commands if the address field matches that set by the DIP switches in its battery compartment.

The detector appears to be in a low-power sleep state most of the time to preserve battery life. As a result of this, and probably to ensure reliable transmission, an alarming detector does not send just a single or a few packets. Instead, over 1000 packets are sent when a detector broadcasts an alarm. Some rough measurement of the received data shows about 10ms delay between packets.

Pinout

The PIC16F883 as used by the Wink Hub only has a single SPI interface, so it was rather simple to figure out how things were wired up. The trickiest part was trying to get two of my HP logic probes on neighboring pins. For one of the connections (CS), I clipped onto a resistor intead of an MCU lead.

Wink Hub CC1101 pinout

Firmware

Background

Two firmwares are included in this repo - stm32_cc1101.ino, which is a more simple proof-of-concept that can both send and receive the Kidde protocol, and was not intended for much beyond that, and kidde_cc1101.ino, which I created so I could use my smoke detector with Home Assistant.

kidde_cc1101.ino was developed using a RM1101-USB-232 which unfortunately wasn't suitable in its stock form due to the SPI programming interface being fused off, and because the CC1101 isn't wired up to the ATmega48PA using hardware SPI pins (no idea why). So, I desoldered and replaced the ATmega48PA with an ATmega328P and added jumpers to connect the hardware SPI interface to the CC1101. Not pretty, but it works. Some pics of the before/after can be found here. Something like a SIGNALduino would be a better route to go, though they're relatively pricey.

Requirements

kidde_cc1101.ino should work on any ATmega board >= ATmega328P (given RAM / flash requirements) as long as hardware SPI and GDO2 are connected to the CC1101 module. Note that CC1101 operates at 3.3V so the ATmega should operate at 3.3V or have appropriate level shifting.

The following external libraries are used:

MiniCore was originally chosen due to it supporting the ATmega48, however it stuck even after swapping the chip for a ATmega328P. It allows easily specifying things like the "non-standard" 8MHz crystal found on the RM1101-USB-232 and other 3.3V boards as well as BOD fuse settings. However, the standard Arduino core will work as well, but you might need to edit boards.txt and replace e.g. uno.build.f_cpu=16000000L with uno.build.f_cpu=8000000L if your board is 8MHz.

Configuring

Interaction with kidde_cc1101.ino is via JSON sent over the UART. The default settings are as follows:

  • log level of INFO (minimal non-alarm chatter)
  • smoke detector address of 0b00000000 (factory dip switch settings, IIRC)
  • alarm expiry of 10s (JSON expiry message is sent 10s after the last packet is rx'd from detector)
  • 38400 baud (should work for both 8MHz and 16MHz boards)

A few compile-time defines are available:

  • LOG_LEVEL - if compiling without DYNAMIC_LOG, log-level is fixed at this
  • DYNAMIC_LOG - allows changing log level at runtime, and subsequently stores all log messages in flash
  • MEMORY_USAGE - at TRACE log-level, will output memory usage. Requires MemoryFree library
  • ADDRESS_MAX - maximum number of monitored addresses. Each address requires ~96 bytes of RAM. Default is 4
  • CS, MOSI, MISO, SCLK, GDO0, GDO2, LED - corresponding pins on ATmega. Note that there are separate sections depending on if MiniCore or standard Arduino is used
  • RM1101_USB_232, EN, ORIG_SCLK, ORIG_MOSI, ORIG_MISO - only relevant if you're using a modified RM1101-USB-232. EN is the amplifier enable pin
  • SPISettings CC1101() - if you want to use an SPI speed other than 1MHz

Example commands

Assuming that the connected ATmega's serial port is /dev/ttyUSB0:

Change the baud to 500000:
echo '{"type":"set","key":"baud","value":500000}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Change the baud to 115200:
echo '{"type":"set","key":"baud","value":115200}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Monitor addresses 0x00, 0xAA, 0xCC, and 0xBB:
echo '{"type":"set","key":"address","value":[0,170,204,187]}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Monitor address 0xFF:
echo '{"type":"set","key":"address","value":[255]}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Set alarm expiry to 60s:
echo '{"type":"set","key":"expiry","value":60}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Set alarm expiry to 5m:
echo '{"type":"set","key":"expiry","value":300}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Enable promiscuous mode (note: this disables normal stateful alarm functionality):
echo '{"type":"set","key":"promisc","value":true}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Disable promiscuous mode:
echo '{"type":"set","key":"promisc","value":false}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Set log level to TRACE (requires compiling with DYNAMIC_LOG):
echo '{"type":"set","key":"log_level","value":"trace"}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Clear EEPROM (requires reset to take effect):
echo '{"type":"set","key":"clear"}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Reset ATmega:
echo '{"type":"set","key":"reset"}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Jump to bootloader (requires Optiboot >= 7):
echo '{"type":"set","key":"bootloader"}' >> /dev/ttyUSB0

Recover from bad baud (or just reflash with EEPROM_MAGIC changed to something other than {'k', 'i', 'd', 'd', 'e'}):

stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 # this should be the baud rate you set
perl -MTime::HiRes -e '$|++; my $cmd = q|{"type":"set","key":"clear"}|; foreach my $byte (split("", $cmd)) { print $byte; Time::HiRes::sleep(0.05) } print "\n";' >> /dev/ttyUSB0`

Then cycle power.

Example output

Board reset at INFO log level:

{"millis":0,"type":"log","level":"info","caller":"setup","msg":"setup"}
{"address":[170],"expiry":10,"baud":500000,"promisc":false}
{"millis":1007,"type":"log","level":"info","caller":"resetCC1101","msg":"reset took 2168 us"}
{"type":"chip_info","status":15,"partnum":0,"version":20}
{"millis":1013,"type":"log","level":"info","caller":"calibrateCC1101","msg":"calibration took 1072 us"}

Below are artificially generated alarms - the normal duration is 10s for a test, and indefinite for smoke/CO.

Smoke detected and subsequent expiry:

{"millis":70160,"type":"alarm","address":170,"command":"smoke","min_rssi":4,"max_rssi":4,"duration":0,"count":1,"active":true}
{"millis":98447,"type":"alarm","address":170,"command":"smoke","min_rssi":1,"max_rssi":252,"duration":17447,"count":10,"active":false}

CO detected and subsequent expiry:

{"millis":69158,"type":"alarm","address":170,"command":"co","min_rssi":3,"max_rssi":3,"duration":0,"count":1,"active":true}
{"millis":81649,"type":"alarm","address":170,"command":"co","min_rssi":3,"max_rssi":4,"duration":2472,"count":2,"active":false}

Test detected and subsequent expiry:

{"millis":67289,"type":"alarm","address":170,"command":"test","min_rssi":4,"max_rssi":4,"duration":0,"count":1,"active":true}
{"millis":91236,"type":"alarm","address":170,"command":"test","min_rssi":3,"max_rssi":4,"duration":13416,"count":11,"active":false}

Low battery detected and subsequent expiry:

{"millis":69361,"type":"alarm","address":170,"command":"battery","min_rssi":3,"max_rssi":3,"duration":0,"count":1,"active":true}
{"millis":93300,"type":"alarm","address":170,"command":"battery","min_rssi":2,"max_rssi":4,"duration":13716,"count":5,"active":false}

Promiscuous mode:

{"millis":1455659,"type":"packet","command":"hush","address":187,"raw_command":129,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":4}
{"millis":1455712,"type":"packet","command":"test","address":204,"raw_command":128,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":3}
{"millis":1455769,"type":"packet","command":"unknown","address":0,"raw_command":136,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":2}
{"millis":1455790,"type":"packet","command":"hush","address":204,"raw_command":129,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":4}
{"millis":1455800,"type":"packet","command":"unknown","address":0,"raw_command":138,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":2}
{"millis":1455822,"type":"packet","command":"battery","address":0,"raw_command":141,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":2}
{"millis":1455953,"type":"packet","command":"unknown","address":204,"raw_command":139,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":2}
{"millis":1455990,"type":"packet","command":"battery","address":170,"raw_command":141,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":2}
{"millis":1456039,"type":"packet","command":"unknown","address":170,"raw_command":135,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":0}
{"millis":1456105,"type":"packet","command":"battery","address":170,"raw_command":141,"suffix":38655,"rssi":12,"crc":true,"lqi":0}
{"millis":1456144,"type":"packet","command":"smoke","address":204,"raw_command":131,"suffix":38655,"rssi":13,"crc":true,"lqi":1}

Example Home Assistant configuration

configuration.yaml:

...
sensor: !include sensor.yaml
binary_sensor: !include binary_sensor.yaml
...

sensor.yaml:

- platform: serial
  serial_port: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-Silicon_Labs_CP2102_USB_to_UART_Bridge_Controller_0001-if00-port0
  baudrate: 500000
  name: kidde serial

binary_sensor.yaml:

- platform: template
  sensors:
    kidde_battery:
      friendly_name: kidde battery
      value_template: >-
        {% if state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'command') == "battery" %}
          {{ state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'active') }}
        {% else %}
          {{ is_state('binary_sensor.kidde_battery', 'on') }}
        {% endif %}
      availability_template: >-
        {% if not is_state('sensor.kidde_serial', 'unavailable') %}
          true
        {% endif %}

    kidde_co:
      friendly_name: kidde co
      value_template: >-
        {% if state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'command') == "co" %}
          {{ state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'active') }}
        {% else %}
          {{ is_state('binary_sensor.kidde_co', 'on') }}
        {% endif %}
      availability_template: >-
        {% if not is_state('sensor.kidde_serial', 'unavailable') %}
          true
        {% endif %}

    kidde_hush:
      friendly_name: kidde hush
      value_template: >-
        {% if state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'command') == "hush" %}
          {{ state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'active') }}
        {% else %}
          {{ is_state('binary_sensor.kidde_hush', 'on') }}
        {% endif %}
      availability_template: >-
        {% if not is_state('sensor.kidde_serial', 'unavailable') %}
          true
        {% endif %}

    kidde_smoke:
      friendly_name: kidde smoke
      value_template: >-
        {% if state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'command') == "smoke" %}
          {{ state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'active') }}
        {% else %}
          {{ is_state('binary_sensor.kidde_smoke', 'on') }}
        {% endif %}
      availability_template: >-
        {% if not is_state('sensor.kidde_serial', 'unavailable') %}
          true
        {% endif %}

    kidde_test:
      friendly_name: kidde test
      value_template: >-
        {% if state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'command') == "test" %}
          {{ state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'active') }}
        {% else %}
          {{ is_state('binary_sensor.kidde_test', 'on') }}
        {% endif %}
      availability_template: >-
        {% if not is_state('sensor.kidde_serial', 'unavailable') %}
          true
        {% endif %}

    kidde_unknown:
      friendly_name: kidde unknown
      value_template: >-
        {% if state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'command') == "unknown" %}
          {{ state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'active') }}
        {% else %}
          {{ is_state('binary_sensor.kidde_unknown', 'on') }}
        {% endif %}
      availability_template: >-
        {% if not is_state('sensor.kidde_serial', 'unavailable') %}
          true
        {% endif %}

If you have multiple detectors on different addresses (note - this will effectively disable the wireless interconnect between them), you could filter by address like so:

    kidde_smoke_garage:
      friendly_name: kidde smoke (garage - 0x00)
      value_template: >-
        {% if state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'command') == "smoke" and state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'address') == 0 %}
          {{ state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'active') }}
        {% else %}
          {{ is_state('binary_sensor.kidde_smoke_garage', 'on') }}
        {% endif %}
      availability_template: >-
        {% if not is_state('sensor.kidde_serial', 'unavailable') %}
          true
        {% endif %}

    kidde_smoke_gazebo:
      friendly_name: kidde smoke (gazebo - 0xAA)
      value_template: >-
        {% if state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'command') == "smoke" and state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'address') == 170 %}
          {{ state_attr('sensor.kidde_serial', 'active') }}
        {% else %}
          {{ is_state('binary_sensor.kidde_smoke_gazebo', 'on') }}
        {% endif %}
      availability_template: >-
        {% if not is_state('sensor.kidde_serial', 'unavailable') %}
          true
        {% endif %}

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Experiments with Kidde / Wink 433MHz wireless protocol

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