I’ve been using my IQ Panel/Alarm.com system for a while now and this is honestly the one feature I keep wishing it had.
When the system is Armed Stay, I’d like the ability to temporarily bypass one specific perimeter sensor without disarming the rest of the house.
My everyday example is our sliding backyard door. When I let my dog outside, she has to be supervised and we may be outside for around five minutes. Quick Exit is too short for this, so right now I have to disarm the entire house, leave every other door and window unprotected while we’re outside, then come back in and re-arm everything.
Ideally I could tap the sliding-door sensor and choose something like:
Temporarily bypass → Until door closes / 5 min / 10 min / 15 min
Every other security zone would remain armed. Once the slider closes, the system could automatically restore that zone to the armed perimeter.
I think “bypass until closed” would be especially useful because there would be no risk of forgetting to re-enable the sensor.
It seems both more convenient and more secure than requiring the user to completely disarm the system just to use one door temporarily.
Quick Exit is close to solving this use case, but the fixed short duration makes it unsuitable when someone actually needs to remain outside for several minutes.
This is a great suggestion, I am happy to forward it to the manufacturer.
One potential work-around, if you use the same door each time, is to set up multiple partitions.
If you enable partitions on the panel you could set that door sensor as its own partition and only disarm that one partition when going out, then rearm when coming in. The rest of the system, on a different partition, would remain armed no matter how long you are outside.
We have a guide on how to set up partitions below:
Let me know if you try partitions and if that works out for your use case!
I completely agree with your suggestion! That would be handy.
I have the same issue with my dog, as evidenced by a 3am emergency trip last night.
Question: is your back door slider on a wireless sensor or is it a wired one (even if connected to a takeover or sensor with external input like a PG9945/PGP9945e)?
If the door contact (reed switch) is wired, there is a potential workaround by adding a relay (or secondary sensor) as a temporary shunt to bypass the door while maintaining arm state.
Essentially, you’d wire a normally open relay contact in parallel with the door’s reed switch (on the switch side of the EOL resistor, assuming a conventional NC contact). When you want to let the dog out, activate the relay to temporarily bypass that door. All other zones remain armed. When you’re finished, release the relay and the door returns to normal monitoring.
You might want to automate that relay with other logic to automatically remove the shunt, and may even want a visual indicator somewhere that the shunt was active just in case. Of course being careful to not release the relay while the door was open.
Not as elegant as what you proposed, of course but might be a way around it in the short term. Anyway - just an idea!
