IQ4 v4.5.2 Panel Glassbreak

Support
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Had an experience last night that raised a number of questions. While away, a panel glassbreak alert was detected, leading to an unnecessary and prolonged series of outcomes. Apologies ahead of time for a long topic, but hopefully it will be helpful to others also.

  1. The panel glassbreak sensor has triggered twice, to my memory, since we’ve installed this panel around 2.5 years ago. The first time was an oddity that I should have asked about at the time. One of our mobile devices for one reason or another was connected to the panel via Bluetooth and playing music as we were leaving our garage in our car. When the other mobile device armed the system Away, the panel glass break sensor immediately triggered. We aborted that pending alarm right away, but it did lead to questions about how the sensors actually work in this panel. Did the panel detect the self-noise of the music playing over bluetooth and interpret that as a glass break?

  2. Last night, while we were Away across town, the panel glass break sensor was again triggered. The panel image showed nothing in the darkened home. We did not know what to do. I dismissed the alarm, wondering if we should check our cameras, but we decided it would be best to allow law enforcement to be dispatched. We do have three cats, however they have never triggered that sensor before while Away, even over extended use during long vacations. Because I had aborted that alarm, we now needed to decide how to “undo” that reflexive dismissal. We could only think to trigger the Panic for law enforcement from the app. We did do this. We hurried home to find eight police vehicles, officers outside the home with rifles readied, and a K9 already inside our home ahead officers performing a sweep. So - I am now interested to know exactly how these panel glass break sensors work, on a technical level. Are there any manufacturer documents I can reference for the Qolsys implementation of this feature?

  3. Is there any difference in the information shared with local law enforcement dispatch between a triggered alarm and a Panic response, in terms of situational severity, that may have resulted in such a dramatic response, or would this have been the result regardless?

  4. How can I feature request an “undo abort”? This situation is likely common where multiple persons with access to a system might require a reversion of an aborted alert state - otherwise the only option is to do what we did - initiate a manual law enforcement Panic.

  5. I did perform a walkaround with Law Enforcement when the “all clear” was given. I discovered no fallen or broken objects. Our cats do not claw at windows, though they do use litter boxes which may perhaps be close enough to the microphone to match some audio signature algorithm. The police mentioned that a power outage had occurred in our area around the time the alarm was triggered. However, we do often experience outages, brownouts and flickers in our area, and this hasn’t happened before. When power is restored after an outage, there are plenty of beeps and “power restored” audible cues from various devices around our home (including bidets spontaneously flushing) but this has never triggered a glass break sensor. The only way I can think of to test this would be to Arm Away, hit the main breaker, restore power, and see of some sound causes that sensor to trigger. If Surety Support is aware of another method, I’d be eager to try that.

  6. Once the police had left and we were attempting to console our highly traumatized cats, we faced an issue where our Power-G (Tyco DSC PG9936) smoke detectors were all continuing to chirp throughout the home. Actually, when initially entering and before resolving the Panic state, this was the case. After I acknowledged the alarm and disabled the system, I could see that the panel showed low battery on all of them. I assume that was because they had been continuously sounding during that entire period of time until they all entered a low battery state. Is that the expected behavior - that a low battery actually silences the active alarm and instead enters the low battery routine - rather than continuing to sound until the batteries are fully depleted? That would not seem to be a desirable functionality during an emergency, when the alarms should sound until no longer able.

  7. Can I disable the audible chirp for a low battery state? The panel already notifies the user of any low battery sensor, and given that this is a Power-G device, I wouldn’t expect any compatibility concerns where a panel may not be capable of notifying a user of a low battery.

I realize this is a lot to read. I want to use the panel glass break capability - our house has numerous windows throughout, most of them cannot be opened, so monitoring them would be complex without a detection method like this. Yet, I also need to undertand what the limitations and criteria are to try to prevent false alarms. Thanks for reading.

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As a caveat to some of the below, I am not seeing a Surety monitoring account linked to your username here. The below is answered assuming you use Surety as your alarm service provider. Specific handling of alarm signals and default settings may be different if you use another provider.

Did the panel detect the self-noise of the music playing over bluetooth and interpret that as a glass break?

I wouldn’t be able to confirm this with 100% certainty, but in general music can be a false alarm trigger for glass break sensors. It is a strong possibility.

Because I had aborted that alarm, we now needed to decide how to “undo” that reflexive dismissal. We could only think to trigger the Panic for law enforcement from the app. We did do this. […] Is there any difference in the information shared with local law enforcement dispatch between a triggered alarm and a Panic response, in terms of situational severity, that may have resulted in such a dramatic response, or would this have been the result regardless?

Yes, a Panic alarm will generally be responded to in a different and more urgent manner.

A Panic alarm tells operators (who relay to police) that someone is actively experiencing a confirmed emergency requiring police response. Police will usually treat this with high priority.

If you are not experiencing an emergency requiring police response, it is not recommended to use the Panic functions.

How can I feature request an “undo abort”? This situation is likely common where multiple persons with access to a system might require a reversion of an aborted alert state - otherwise the only option is to do what we did

In this case you could call the monitoring station back and let them know that the alarm was disregarded prematurely and that you cannot confirm the alarm is false, and would like police response.

Generating a Panic tells operators and by extension, police, that an emergency is definitely occurring.

The only way I can think of to test this would be to Arm Away, hit the main breaker, restore power, and see of some sound causes that sensor to trigger. If Surety Support is aware of another method, I’d be eager to try that.

You might try isolating the test to individual circuits of devices near the panel which might make some loud noises during power up. If the device is not within the general range of the sensor it is not likely going to impact it.

Once the police had left and we were attempting to console our highly traumatized cats, we faced an issue where our Power-G (Tyco DSC PG9936) smoke detectors were all continuing to chirp throughout the home. Actually, when initially entering and before resolving the Panic state, this was the case.

Since I do not see a Surety Alarm.com account linked to your username I am not able to check your account history for details on this, however in general the panel will have a siren time-out period set. By default that is at 4 minutes. Your panel may have it set between 3 and 15 minutes.

It’s certainly possible though that after repeated activations using the PowerG smoke siren that those sensors would all report low around the same time. Resolve by replacing the batteries.

Can I disable the audible chirp for a low battery state?

No, I don’t believe there is any way to change this.

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While I go through your reply, I should have specified that the account was under [removed by admin]

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This is useful to know. In this case, having aborted the alarm before the monitoring station called, there was no one to call back. Next time, I’ll be sure to receive the call before aborting the alarm.

This is also useful to know - after we triggered the panic, the monitoring station did call, and although we explained what was happening, what ended up going over to police dispatch could have been foregone as a police emergency.

The low battery on the smoke detectors isn’t altogether unexpected, what I’m curious about is why the alarms sirens were unable to continue sounding and entered a low battery mode. I suppose it’s a design decision as the batteries all tested at 1.3v rather than 1.5v. It would seem eschewing a 9v battery or embedded 10y lithium in favor of a lower consuming device has its own drawbacks. The batteries specified for this model are not suited for high drain.

The chirping is another annoyance. The Power-G linkage is great, I’m a fan of Power-G technology in general, but maybe there are other choices to consider.

As for the glass break scenarios, I’ll report any test results I find for these scenarios. It would be nice to be able to contact Qolsys for information about their glass break sensor technical details, I suppose I could try that apart from my rather unscientific tests.

Thank you for this.

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what I’m curious about is why the alarms sirens were unable to continue sounding and entered a low battery mode.

I am trying to get confirmation from Qolsys on this, but I would expect this behavior in this case I think, given that the primary function of the detector is for life safety purposes as a fire detector, the secondary siren function shouldn’t be able to unexpectedly fully drain the battery under siren usage.

after we triggered the panic, the monitoring station did call, and although we explained what was happening, what ended up going over to police dispatch could have been foregone as a police emergency.

When a Panic alarm comes in operators dispatch first, then call contacts to notify. Dispatch may or may not be able to be cancelled after depending on the timing and police department policy. See the default monitoring procedure post below for operator handling expectations based on the type of signal: