Alarm.com app does not seem to support more than 2 temperature sensors

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1

I installed 2 DSC PG9905 PowerG temperature sensors. They are working great with my Qolsys IQ Panel 4 and the alarm.com iPhone app, so I decided to but 2 more (with external probe wires) for monitoring a freezer and a refrigerator. I can add the 3rd and 4th sensors to the Qolsys panel, and the panel shows temperature readings – but only from the PowerG sensor test screen.

The alarm.com iPhone app, however, will only display readings from the first 2 temperature sensors (see photo). I see no way to configure the app to show the refrigerator or freezer sensors. Is this a known limitation? It looks like I just wasted over $200.

Anyone who wants to monitor temperature in more than 2 places is out-of-luck.

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The Alarm.com app version is the latest (4.21.11) and the panel is 4.0.1.

2

This is correct. Alarm.com applied a limit of 2 PG9905 temp sensors for temp monitoring purposes on accounts.

I think they did this to differentiate one of their commercial specific plans which allows more PG9905 monitoring and add-ons for business monitoring (but is much more expensive).

One work-around would be to use PG9905 for a couple areas requiring probes, then use the ADC Z-wave Remote Temp Sensor for ambient temp monitoring as the same limit does not apply.

I’ll be blunt, I think the limit is dumb, and I have told them that.

3

This is good information. I looked up the sensors you suggested. To use these Z-wave sensors (ADC-2000T), I don’t need to add an Alarm.com thermostat also, do I? I just want temperature readings and don’t need temperature threshold alarms or temperature control.

4

They are only compatible with the Alarm.com brand thermostats for HVAC integration (ADC-T2000, ADC-T3000) however for just the temp monitoring notifications you don’t need a thermostat. They can be added without the thermostat

5

I ordered 2 sensors today.
Thanks for the help!

6

I installed the two new ADC-S2000T sensors (Z-wave) today and they seem to be working. But now one of the two PowerG sensors is no longer updating the temperature displayed on the Alarm.com app. The Refrigerator Temperature always shows 74F on my iPhone app, even though the Qolsys panel shows the temperature to be in the 40’s when I run the PowerG sensor test and select ‘More’ to see the sensor data.

I have tried closing and reopening the app, rebooting the iPhone, and deleting and reinstalling the Refrigerator Temperature sensor.

The Refrigerator and the Freezer temperature sensors are both installed behind and above the appliances and are using the PGTEMP-PROBE wires.

It seems that by adding the Z-wave temperature sensors, that now one of the PowerG temperature sensor data is ignored by the iPhone app. In other words, it looks like the app only allows a maximum of 3 temperature sensors.

I keep pouring money into trying to make this work. Any ideas?

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7

I keep pouring money into trying to make this work. Any ideas?

There is not an overall limit of 3. If it looks like that PG9905 is possibly reporting an ambient room temperature instead of the Probe temp, the first thing I would do is check the probe wiring, it is possibly shorted. If the wiring is shorted, the device would be reporting ambient temps.

PG9905 manual.

The Refrigerator Temperature always shows 74F on my iPhone app, even though the Qolsys panel shows the temperature to be in the 40’s when I run the PowerG sensor test and select ‘More’ to see the sensor data

Checking it in Alarm.com, I am actually seeing the Fridge report a current temp of 43.

Are you still seeing 74 in the app? Check on the website, are they different?

8

Jason,

I am still testing, but here is what I know. Temperature updates do seem to occur if there an out-of-limit condition occurs, and the values are displayed in red or black correctly. The images below show what happens when the actual temperature is WITHIN the sensors high/low limits (temperature values do not update). When I am able to test out-of-limit conditions some more, I will send those results.

The 74F temperature was before I attempted several reinstallations of sensors. Now it is stuck at 43 (refrigerator) at 9 (freezer) – both are wrong. The refrigerator temperature might have been 43F when I did the latest sensor install, but it does not update if I warm the sensor.

I checked the probe wiring this weekend and did not find a short. In fact, I switched the freezer and refrigerator sensors – but not the probes. Still had the same issue.

Today, I pulled the probe wire out of the refrigerator and laid it on top of the refrigerator. It should now be reporting ambient temperature above the refrigerator, but the values do not change on the app or web site. However, if I look at the temperature reported by the PowerG test at the Qolsys panel, it shows 77.9F which is correct. And the freezer temperature is reported as -16.6, which is also correct. Therefore. the PG9905 sensor is reporting the temperature correctly to the Qolsys panel.

The web site shows the same temperatures as the ADC app, so the problem does not seem to be the app.

My conclusion is that the Qolsys IQ Panel 4 is not sending the correct values to the ADC server. I would like to try downgrading the panel firmware from 4.1.0 to 4.0.1 to see if that works better, but when I attempted to install patch iqpanel4.0.1 the panel reported “no update available”. Is there any way to roll back to 4.0.1?

Here are the current app and web site values (incorrect values):

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Here is what the freezer temperature should be:

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Here is what the Qolsys IQ Panel 4 reports with the PowerG sensor tests (correct values):

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The 2 Z-wave ADC temperature sensors are currently uninstalled until I can get the PG9905’s working.

9

Thanks, that helps clarify the issue.

Rolling back and reflashing older firmware is not supported. The panel will not find any update using the network.

Were those sensors previously updating frequently in Alarm.com? Did the issue begin immediately after updating the firmware?

The 2 Z-wave ADC temperature sensors are currently uninstalled until I can get the PG9905’s working.

Is there a difference in PG9905 functionality in ADC with those RTS removed? Is there another reason you have uninstalled those?

10

The short answer is:

  1. I uninstalled the 2 ADC-S2000T sensors to try and get the PG9905 sensors working again. If I can get them working, I will reinstall the 2 Z-wave sensors. I am just trying to isolate the problem.

  2. I had 2 PG9905 sensors working correctly until I added a 3rd PG9905 sensor. After removing the 3rd PG9905 and updating the panel to 4.1.0, the temperature readings have almost never been updated. I say “almost” because it seems that the panel will usually detect when a temperature reading has gone out-of-limit, and the app values update correctly (once).

  3. I am convinced that there is a 4.1.0 panel firmware bug or two that is causing this behavior.

Here is the long answer:

On 3/4/22, I ordered the Qolsys IQ Panel 4 (2 mini door/window sensors included) - cost $337.08

I got the new panel working with most of my existing sensors from my FrontPoint system (IQ Panel 2+), then ordered 5 more sensors (flood, motion, temperature) from Surety on 3/16 - another $380.28. This order had my first temperature sensors – 2 x PG9905. I installed these and they seemed to be working well with the Qolsys IQ Panel 4 and the ADC app. The panel was at version 4.0.1 at that time.

I did not have any temperature sensor problems until I decided to get two more PG9905 sensors so that I could monitor refrigerator and freezer temperatures, in addition to the house and garage internal temperatures. At that time (panel version 4.0.1), I was happy with the temperature sensor behaviors and did not suspect the problems that I would have by adding more PG9905 sensors. I did not know at that time that there was a limit of 2 PG9905 temperature sensors. I cannot find that limit mentioned anywhere on Surety’s web site. The 2 additional PG9905 sensors were purchased from Amazon – another $82.96. (I am currently trying to return them to the seller.) I found the PGTEMP-PROBEs at AlarmGrid.com - cost a ridiculous $119.46.

When I tried installing PG9905 sensor #3 on 4/17, I ran into problems (because I did not know about the 2 sensor limit). The panel allowed me to add the 3rd PG9905, but the app’s temperature readings no longer worked on the original sensors.

While I was struggling with the temperature sensors, my panel went into a wonky state flashing black and white screens. I reported this to Surety on 4/17 [“Qolsys IQ panel 4 is stuck in a flashing blank screen state!”] and you replied on 4/18 saying that there was a newer firmware version (4.1.0) for the panel. In the meantime, I had found that the only way to get the panel back to its normal state was to send an ‘arm’ command followed by a ‘disarm’ command from the iPhone app.

After getting the panel back to normal, on 4/18 I looked at the firmware release notes and saw that there were mentions of changes related to temperature sensors, so I installed the 4.1.0 update. The new version did not fix the temperature readings, even after removing the 3rd sensor.

I ordered two Z-wave ADC-2000T sensors to use for the house and garage temperatures, as suggested by Jason (jwcsurety) on 4/18. [“Alarm.com app does not seem to support more than 2 temperature sensors”]. I purchased them from AlarmSystemStore.com – cost $72.66. I received those on 4/21 and installed them. That did not go smoothly either. I uninstalled them because there are too many variables to isolate the problems. I have numerous other Z-wave devices at home and everything else works fine.

The iPhone app does seem to receive out-of-limit notifications, because the displayed value changes from black to red even though the temperature value does not update.

I have now spent $992.44 for the Qolsys panel and temperature sensors and probes, and still don’t have a single working temperature reading. I can’t even estimate the hours spent on this either.

Without being able to roll the panel firmware back to 4.0.1, I am at a loss on how to proceed.

11

Looks like the system was overzealous and flagged this longer post as spam. Ok, so there is a lot of good info here in this write up.

It is entirely possible there is a bug in 4.1 affecting the reports. I will do some testing to see if I can recreate and I will report this to Qolsys for review as well. I’ll follow up here with what we find out.

The good news is that Qolsys resolves issues if they pop up, and pushes firmware updates frequently.

The iPhone app does seem to receive out-of-limit notifications, because the displayed value changes from black to red even though the temperature value does not update

This may also be an issue with ADC in particular. If it seems the data is being sent, it may be that ADC is not processing it appropriately, this may also have been impacted by firmware, but that is speculation.

I purchased them from AlarmSystemStore.com – cost $72.66. I received those on 4/21 and installed them. That did not go smoothly either. I uninstalled them because there are too many variables to isolate the problems. I have numerous other Z-wave devices at home and everything else works fine

We would need to troubleshoot this separately, however a common big hiccup that occurs with those is that they must be learned in with the panel and the temp sensors in their permanent spot, after all the other repeaters, not paired near the panel and moved after. The RTS do not participate in network rediscoveries.

12

I understand about the Z-wave network discovery, and that the temperature sensors will not operate as Z-wave relays because they are battery-operated and go into sleep mode.

Testing the PG9905 sensors is tedious because of having to wait for the sensors to wake up, take a reading, and detect a temperature difference. I don’t know what the sleep period is, but I have usually waited about 15 minutes.

While you are testing, look at the temperature data reported in the “more” s screen for the PowerG sensor test. It always seems to be correct.

I think the it is unlikely to be an ADC problem because, to my knowledge, the temperatures were being correctly displayed on the ADC app when the panel was at 4.0.1.

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13

I can confirm on 4.1.0 at least that it appears the PG9905 temperature only updates in ADC once when it breaks the set threshold and then once after it resolves. That is the pattern I am seeing.

I am sending this info to ADC and Qolsys to see what the exact expectation is for how often the temperature updates.

14

Thanks for verifying this. I have been very busy the past few days and unable to do additional testing. I am very interested in what ADC and Qolsys say. I know that the DSC PG9905 sensors are reported temperature changes to the panel. And I believe that in version 4.0.1, the temperature changes were being passed through to the ADC app and correctly displayed.

15

There is reference to a fix for an issue with the PG9905 monitoring with version 4.2.0. If you upgrade firmware, do you see any change in sensor behavior? May need to relearn the sensor into the panel to see a difference,

16

How do I get 4.2.0?

My panel is running 4.1.1rc8 and running ‘update software’ says that it is up-to-date. (4.1.1 still does not fix the temperature monitoring problem, but I did not relearn the sensor.)

Bob

17

Follow the firmware installation steps here:

The patch tag is required.

18

Is it still the case that ADC only supports temperature monitoring for up to 2 PG9905 sensors?

19

Yes, PG9905 temp monitoring is limited to 2. There is no limit to Z-wave temp sensors.