I apologize if this has been asked before but I did a quick search of the forum and only found one thread from 5 years ago. Is “Arm Away” still not supported with Alexa? I read your previous explanation: “The difference between Arm Away and Arm Stay is that in Arm Away interior followers like motion detectors will trip alarms.” Okay, but how do they do it with other systems like Ring?
Also, any plans that you know of to allow the display of alarm.com cameras on an Echo Show?
I have recently begun some home automation but have been greatly surprised of the alarm.com limitations. I hate to say it but my GC2 is almost 10 years old and I’m thinking it may be time to go in a different direction if alarm.com isn’t keeping up.
I read your previous explanation: “The difference between Arm Away and Arm Stay is that in Arm Away interior followers like motion detectors will trip alarms.” Okay, but how do they do it with other systems like Ring?
The same basic functional limitation and advice applies, though there is a way around it.
You cannot specifically state arm away, however, you can trigger scenes using Alexa, and an Alarm.com scene can arm the system away. So you could set up a scene to run this if you need to.
Scenes with Arm Away are prompted with a follow-up confirming to run the scene since scenes with Arm Away have the chance to trigger a false alarm.
Arming the system away by voice would immediately arm the system without a countdown, so this would only be usable if you are arming away but remaining in the home, and not passing any motion detectors.
Alarm.com video cannot be streamed on an Echo device screen. I am not aware of any development with that regard, but we are always happy to forward requests!
Hi Jason. Thanks for the response. I guess I just don’t understand why the panel is incapable of receiving an Arm Away command as if the panel issued it, and have the usual countdown.
When armed from the local panel screen, the panel has a countdown. When arming remotely through the app or website using Alarm.com, there is no countdown, it occurs immediately.
A voice command through Alexa triggers a remote command from ADC, which the panel immediately follows.
The only cases where remote commands result in delays are panels which allow running scenes from the panel screen, like the IQ Panel 4, where the panel purposely overrides all arming commands to have a countdown if scenes control is enabled on the panel.
I appreciate that explanation. It would still seem to me that, if they wanted, they could accommodate this request with some coding and a panel firmware update. Given that this has been like this for years, I’d say they don’t want to. The same with the camera view accessibility from an Echo show. My perception is that alarm.com is very resistant to opening up their closed environment and has reluctantly given minimal Alexa access to placate the customers who repeatedly asked for it. Staying this course will ultimately be their undoing as customers, and potential customers, will go elsewhere.
Alarm.com does not control panel firmware development for 2GIG, and the GC2 is unlikely to see development as a discontinued system, however we can certainly forward all such requests to ADC. It is always useful to push ideas that way, as development mostly happens based on demand. If it is a popular enough request it will likely gain traction.
If you need to arm away using voice, scenes are a current option.