So I wanted to test the system tonight, so I armed in Stay mode from the IQ2 secondary panel, waited for the 60 second countdown and watched the system do into armed mode (stay).
I walked down stairs and tripped one of the image sensors expecting the IQ panel to go crazy and sound an alarm. That did not happen. Both the IQ2 and IQ panel showed a red screen and that the system was activated, but no audible alarm.
I waited for SuretyCam monitoring service to call. They called via the 2-way communication in the IQ panel. After I gave them security code and they hung up, then the panel went crazy and into audible alarm mode. I then had to disarm the alarmcby entering my code into the panel.
Is this how an alarming event is supposed to go down?
Just received an email from SuretyCam or alarm.com saying the following about my alarm event.
“Pending Alarm event was triggered…What is a “Pending Alarm” event?
To prevent false alarms from being reported to the central monitoring station and possibly resulting in an unnecessary police dispatch, most security systems today are programmed with a “Dialer Delay”. That means that after an alarm is tripped, the system waits (usually 15-45 seconds) before attempting to report the alarm to the central monitoring station. (Note that Dialer Delays do NOT apply to fire/smoke alarms.) Unfortunately, that delay could give an intruder enough time to break in and smash or otherwise disable your control panel, preventing it from reporting the alarm once the delay expires. To prevent a “Crash & Smash” intruder from completely disabling your security system during the programmed Dialer Delay, your system will send a “Pending Alarm” signal to the offsite operations center as soon as the alarm is tripped. This tells the operations center that a Disarm event or an Alarm event should be expected from your system within the next several minutes. If neither one of these events is received, then the operations center will issue a second, “Suspected Alarm” event and handle the original pending alarm event as a real alarm. If a Disarm event is received within the expected timeframe, then the Pending Alarm will be logged but will not generate any alarm notifications. If an Alarm event is received within the expected timeframe, then the Alarm event will be handled following standard alarm reporting procedures for your account.”
So is there a way to disable the “dialer delay?”. In my mind, when an alarm event is triggered, you want the alarm to do its job and notify the monitoring station. If it’s a false alarm, the monitoring station will contact the owner to find out and then Police will not be dispatched.
I don’t want someone breaking into my house – particularly while I home – and the alarm is playing games with determining whether there is something really happening or not. That’s what I paying the monitoring service for… to have my back and call me eight away when there an alarm event andnif they can’t get me, to notify the authorities. Am I missing something? First time I’ve heard of a built in delay for the monitoring service…
So is there a way to disable the “dialer delay?”. In my mind, when an alarm event is triggered, you want the alarm to do its job and notify the monitoring station. If it’s a false alarm, the monitoring station will contact the owner to find out and then Police will not be dispatched.
Dialer Delay is a very common feature of alarm panels, most of the time it went unnoticed because it simply added a delay to traditional alarms, allowing the user to disarm a false activation prior to a signal being sent.
The Qolsys IQ panel has a mandatory dialer delay built in. In this case, it is noticed each time because of instant alerts (email, text, etc.)
The lowest the IQ Panel can be set for dialer delay is 5 seconds if you disable SIA limits in the security settings, otherwise with SIA limits enabled you can drop dialer delay to 15 seconds.
The IQ Panel is expected to suppress siren activity for 2-Way Voice Activation.
Panel goes red showing alarm triggered, no audible siren
After 3 minutes or so, contacted by monitoring service via 2-way voice on panel
After disconnecting with monitoring service, panel still red and now emits audible alarm.
I disarm alarm via panel and audible alarm stops.
So a few comments –
So no audible alarm from alarm trigger through dialer delay completion…how would you know if you (or anybody else, more importantly) triggered an alarm without explicitly looking at the panel? Hard to disarm the panel to avoid false alarm if you don’t know it was even triggered.
…then after dialer delay complete and it sends a signal to monitoring service, no audible alarm while monitoring service uses 2-way voice…makes sense so that you can talk to monitoring service.
The siren should definitely activate during the dialer delay (it will turn off if you press the cancel button) and only kick off when 2way kicks in.
After 3 minutes or so, contacted by monitoring service via 2-way voice on panel
I’m showing a total of 1 minute 10 seconds from the time the alarm signal occurred to the moment the system was disarmed.
Looks like dialer delay was default in this case, so 30 seconds.
I’ll discuss with Qolsys regarding the siren failing to activate during the dialer delay. Have you tested this again? Can you test this with a door sensor? Do you see the same out of a door/window sensor as the Image Sensor?
Armed the alarm in “stay” mode. 60 second countdown began. Waited a few more seconds. Then I opened the front door and a 30 second delay timer appeared on the panel. Is this supposed to happen? Would of thought that the alarm would trigger immediately?
Armed the alarm in “stay” mode. 60 second countdown began. Waited a few more seconds. Then I tried triggering each of my motion sensors. By the way these three motion sensors are set up in group “15-IS-Stay-Instant Motion.” One of the three motion sensors (let’s call it Image Sensor A) triggered an instant siren (within 5 seconds) when I walked in front of it, but the second and third (Image Sensors B and C) did not. After walking in front of the image sensor, I set my stop watch and the alarm eventually triggered after 2-3 minutes. I’m assuming that I triggered a timer when I walked in front of it, but as mentioned earlier, it is set up to trigger with “instant motion.” Any ideas as to what is going on here? Signal strength for all three image sensors are over 40%. All three sensors (A, B and C) trigger an audible alarm within 5 seconds when the system is armed in “away” mode.
After arming system in stay mode, one of the three motion sensors (let’s call it Image Sensor A) triggered an instant siren (within 5 seconds) when I walked in front of it, but the second and third (Image Sensors B and C) did not. Here’s what happened with image sensors B and C…
Scenario 1: After setting alarm in Stay mode and walking in front of only image sensor B, I set my stop watch and the alarm eventually triggered (audible alarm) after 2-3 minutes. I disarmed the system.
Scenario 2: I rearmed the system in stay mode again and after walking in front of only image sensor C, I set my stop watch and the alarm eventually triggered (audible alarm) after 2-3 minutes. I disarmed the system.
Armed the alarm in “stay” mode. 60 second countdown began. Waited a few more seconds. Then I opened the front door and a 30 second delay timer appeared on the panel. Is this supposed to happen? Would of thought that the alarm would trigger immediately?
Is that sensor an Entry Exit sensor or a Perimeter sensor?
Entry delay will occur regardless of arming stay or away if the sensor is programmed as entry/exit. You can select any time you arm to toggle entry delay off.
Armed the alarm in “stay” mode. 60 second countdown began. Waited a few more seconds. Then I tried triggering each of my motion sensors
Waiting a few seconds is likely the issue. Wireless motion detectors will have a few minute delay when arming especially if motion has recently occurred in their field of view. As a battery saving feature, they will not constantly activate. It is best to make sure no one walks through an area where a motion detector can view, arm the system, wait a couple minutes, then try tripping that motion.
This does not explain why all of the sensors triggered when the alarm was armed in “away” mode seconds after the arming. All three sensors (A, B and C) trigger an audible alarm within 5 seconds when the system is armed in “away” mode.
This does not explain why all of the sensors triggered when the alarm was armed in “away” mode seconds after the arming. All three sensors (A, B and C) trigger an audible alarm within 5 seconds when the system is armed in “away” mode.
This does not explain why all of the sensors triggered when the alarm was armed in “away” mode seconds after the arming. All three sensors (A, B and C) trigger an audible alarm within 5 seconds when the system is armed in “away” mode
There is no difference between programming for the three image sensors. No hidden timers. There should be no difference between stay and away activation.
Since you noticed one, the thing to focus on first while testing is what can vary from activation to activation, and that is heat signatures and the delay between last activation and testing.
In order to effectively test any battery operated motion detector, you must give it time to let the background heat signature be set. The detectors are tripped via infrared. The delays are not exact but are more or less a few minutes.
If the image sensors do not activate upon motion when tested this way and have an additional delay in activation, we would then want to investigate the hardware and location.
Yes. This would be the best way to test to simulate an actual occurrence of an intruder and verify that the sensors have had time to settle the background temps of the rooms since last activation.
[Update] Still confused as to when alarm panel is supposed to sound audible alarm. Let’s say the system is armed, you leave and then you come back home. When you open the front door, the alarm panel shows “red,” but no audible alarm. Is this the entry delay?
And so if you set the entry delay to zero, the audible alarm would sound until you disarmed the system? And if you did not disarm, the dialer delay would govern when the monitoring station would be notified…and the audible alarm would be sounding the entire time…is that right?
When you open the front door, the alarm panel shows “red,” but no audible alarm. Is this the entry delay?
And so if you set the entry delay to zero, the audible alarm would sound until you disarmed the system? And if you did not disarm, the dialer delay would govern when the monitoring station would be notified…and the audible alarm would be sounding the entire time…is that right?
Yes.
Entry Delay: Time before your local system goes into alarm state, allowing you to disarm. Sensors programmed as Entry Exit will exhibit this behavior.
Dialer Delay: Time after local system goes into alarm, but before your panel confirms the alarm signal with the central station for response.
I guess I’m looking for the audible alarm to go off when the entry door is opened so that the person opening the door knows they need to disarm the alarm. Or if intruder, the audible alarm deters them. As it now stands, when the door is opened, there is no audible alarm until after the entry delay expires and so someone needs to walk back to the panel by the door to disarm. What’s the best way to do that? Change the front door sensor type to a mode without entry delay?
The master volume was off (good catch!) – so I turned it up. Now when I open the door after the system is armed, the panel beeps with a 30 second countdown timer with a keypad showing to enter the code. No audible alarm as I had expected – just an innocuous beep-beep-beep with each passing second… So I guess I would need to change the sensor type to a non-entry delay mode in order for the audible alarm to sound…and then when the front door is opened, the “entry delay” would be the dialer delay countdown.
That would work if you are looking for an immediate siren each time. As an FYI you can arm with “No Entry Delay” as an option, so you could use the normal entry delay plus dialer delay, or just dialer delay, chosen when arming each time.
