Installed the 2Gig system last week and very satisfied with the Surety experience. All new equipment and all functioned great for a week.
In the middle of the night last night, the High Heat detector alarmed and caused big problems for sleeping children and neighbors. Not to mention scaring the absolute heck out of mom and dad. No apparent reason for activation and the sensor was blinking normally when inspected. When I tried to disarm the system, the screen froze, pixelated and then reboot. Upon reboot, showed yellow indication for high heat detector. I ended up bypassing the zone to prevent reactivation.
Are false alarms like this common with wireless systems? Is there anything I could have done wrong to cause this and most importantly, how do I make sure it never happens again?
No, false alarms are not common just because the sensors are wireless. Something is wrong.
I don’t see anything in your event history about an alarm in the middle of the night last night. Apparently it wasn’t reported, which is strange. I see some other alarms reported yesterday evening and this evening but not last night. Since you said the 2GIG panel rebooted itself, maybe something went wrong with the control panel and it didn’t transmit the alarm? Do you remember about what time it was when the false alarm occurred? What is the exact name of the sensor that false alarmed? You have a lot of sensors including multiple high temperature sensors so we need to be clear in which one we’re talking about.
I see that the basement high heat detector is programmed as a day zone which is unusual. It would normally be programmed as a 24-hour fire zone. Is that something you changed because of the issue last night? It wouldn’t explain the problem though.
It was the basement high heat detector at 8:39p. We have young kids, so that was middle of the night for us. All asleep.
When it first went off, I checked on the sensor and it appeared normal. No audible at the sensor. While I was there, the fire alarm activated from the same sensor. (Maybe 2 minutes after high heat). That’s when the panel failed to disarm and froze.
After reboot. It alarmed again and I was able to disarm. I went into programmers toolbox and disabled reporting for the zone.
It now shows as “open” on the status but is not triggering alarm. No heat vents etc near sensor. Any advice much appreciated. Wife doesn’t want alarm if its going to false trigger.
Ryan, can u also please tell me if there is a way to lower the volume and/or silence the sounder on the panels. (Not button volume.) Would still like to hear non-alarm announcements, but lower the actual interior alarm siren.
The heat detector has a Fixed 135° element that melts.
You will have to remove the heat zone from programming and/or replace the entire detector to prevent it going into alarm/activation if the fixed aspect of the heat actually activated for whatever reason
If the element was damaged (dropped, hit,etc), it’ll be the same result as if it were activated by 135° heat. Ditto if heat/smoke detector is for whatever reason, defective. (Remove from programming and replace)
The siren sounder is a set db rating, if I am not mistaken, however you are able to use the “disable sounder” in programming for a short time. This will lower the volume of the siren substantially until re-enabled or a half hour elapses, at which time it reverts.
The heat detector is blinking green with no alarm. But it shows “open”, “must be reset” in status. I’ve armed and disarmed multiple times but it won’t reset. Anything else to try?
Could there be a back door to reducing the db of the siren through programming or extending the sounder mute beyond 30 mins?
We have 5 panels. Id like to hear the announcements on all panels but only hear the interior siren on one panel. Alternatively, maybe can I adjust the timeout of the siren to be just a second or two. I can’t hear an intruder or talk to my family members with the interior Siren blaring.
If I install a hardwired sounder, will it override the internal sounder or will they both alert?
My mistake on the middle of the night thing. This is what I see in the alarm report during that time.
Basement Freeze Detector (Sensor 41) Extreme Temperature Alarm 12/11/2014 8:47:46 pm
Basement Smoke Detector (Sensor 13) Fire Alarm 12/11/2014 8:47:45 pm
Basement Freeze Detector (Sensor 41) Extreme Temperature Alarm 12/11/2014 8:44:24 pm
Basement Smoke Detector (Sensor 13) Fire Alarm 12/11/2014 8:44:23 pm
Basement Freeze Detector (Sensor 41) Extreme Temperature Alarm 12/11/2014 8:41:26 pm
Basement Smoke Detector (Sensor 13) Fire Alarm 12/11/2014 8:41:25 pm
Basement High Temperature Sensor (Sensor 18) Extreme Temperature Alarm 12/11/2014 8:39:38 pm
Interestingly, the first sensor to alarm was not the same sensor as the subsequent alarms. Sensor 18 has a different RF ID (serial number) than sensors 13 and 41. Sensor 18 is your RE219 flood and extreme temperature sensor. Sensors 13 and 14 are the 2GIG smoke detector. That makes our problem even more difficult because we can’t say it’s isolated to just one potentially faulty sensor.
To me it seems like the problem is more likely with the control panel than the sensors because when the problem occurred you had false alarms from multiple sensors and then the panel rebooted itself which should never happen under normal circumstances.
Has anything weird happened since then? Unfortunately this this might not be an easy one to solve.
On a few occasions I’ve seen 2GIG panels just report open sensors for no apparent reason for a while and then sometimes freeze up and/or reboot themselves. It’s a problem that 2GIG hasn’t yet been willing to acknowledge exists. They haven’t been able to reproduce it and it’s pretty rare. I call it the possessed 2GIG panel problem.
If this was an instance of a possessed 2GIG panel then the best solution I’ve found so far is to issue a hard reset of the panel. Would you like me to try doing a hard reset on your panel remotely? Then it would just be a waiting game to see if the problem happens again.
Those extreme temp and fire alarm sensors will alarm whether or not your panel is armed so arming the panel doesn’t make a difference.
Seems to be functioning normally but for the “open sensor” display in the Alarm.com internet interface. It says “sensor not ready” - “Needs to be reset”. The panel doesn’t show any problems and status is clear. Is there a chance that it is a backend problem with Alarm.com?
I tested the device and it passes, flashes green, communicates with panel with no errors. The device has three loops though and I can only test the “Heat Sensor” loop by pressing the test button.
Is there any other diagnostic work I should do and/or do you recommend swapping out for a new device?
Sometimes after a 2GIG-SMKT3-345 alarms it’s status doesn’t automatically get reset in the control panel. When that happens you’ll see a big warning on the Alarm.com System Summary page that says “Smoke sensor has not been reset” and then on the Sensors page you might see a status of “Below temp threshold” for that smoke detector. Since your panel froze up and rebooted when the smoke detector was in alarm, I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t have a chance to reset the smoke detector status. Here’s a topic that addresses how to fix it.
The only other diagnostic we should try is I can issue a hard reset command for your control panel - which is like a reboot but also does some additional “house cleaning” in the panel. That’s been the most effective way to address the possessed 2GIG panel problem in my experience. Do you mind if I do that? On your end you would just see your panel reboot.
OK, all set. I noticed the smoke detector was still showing a status of having not been reset so I went ahead and cleared its status on our end. Please let us know if you see that warning again.
This is what I see in the alarm report during that time.