Equipment setup:
Qolsys IQ Panel 2
16 channel hardwire takeover module
No wireless sensors
I installed the system last night. The house I moved into has all older hardwired sensors so I set up the motion sensor first. When do you do ARM STAY, it’s fine, the motion sensor does not trip the alarm as expected.
When I do ARM AWAY and walk to the front door to exit, the motion sensor detects my movement (as expected), but it sets the alarm off.
I also noticed I receive an email every time I walk around downstairs stating, “The Motion Detector reported a Tamper at XYZ time.”
I tried different sensors groups, from 17 and 20 and the same behavior.
Is this caused because I don’t have a magnetic door sensor connected yet? I figured the motion would stay disabled until I exited the house and not trip before I left, as expected.
Another late night of troubleshooting with no success. I tested the EOL resistors and they are 2K. Everything registers just fine in the panel by opening a door or walking past a motion sensor.
The issue is my sensors enter into tamper mode once tripped. If I open the interior garage door, it will say “GARAGE DOOR OPEN,” then when I close it, it will say, “GARAGE DOOR TAMPERED.” ?? Makes no sense that it can detect it opening but things it’s being tampered when closed? Really lost on this one.
I did a few other steps, I reset the hardwire back to factory defaults since there were some threads indicating that at the factory they can have test devices used. I also added a TAMPER wire between the TAMPER terminals.
Still the same thing.
Took out my multimeter and tested the EOL resistors. The both of them came in at 2K. Just to try another troublehsooting step, I changed the garage one out with the 3K that comes in the bag, still the same thing.
I can’t figure out how to step the door magnet (in frame) and motion sensor from going into TAMPER mode.
Came up from the basement where my hardwire panel is and checked the Qolsys panel. All the TAMPERED sensors were gone!
I guess that tamper wire really DOES need to be connected. The manual doesn’t mention anything regarding that.
I opened the garage door, which reported, “Garage door open” and upon closing it, there was no more tamper signal, it just cleared the icon.
The motion sensor also cleared its icon to a small person icon. Never saw that before.
I was then able to arm the alarm in AWAY mode and exit the property without the motion sensor entering into tamper mode and setting the alarm off before you had a chance to leave.
I also did a quick test of ARMING AWAY while standing next to the panel. It never went into ARMING AWAY, instead it would flip to ARMING STAY. I found out it needs to have a door sensor trip and close before it will go into AWAY mode. I think I saw that in a setting, one of the sensor groups if you want a dependency on another sensor.
Hope this is all sorted out and things won’t change overnight as per some of the other HARDWIRE threads that I read tonight and yes I read two pages of them. I found the tamper wire one and I stuck a resistor in there as per the recommendation of another surety employee.
If this works and holds steady then I can connect the other 10 sensors in the house. Getting on a flight tomorrow to fly cross country and I didn’t feel good leaving the house unsecured, figured it out just in TIME – best way to learn too! I learned so much about the system over the past two days.
Also noticed the hardwire panel just has one flashing red light now, everything else is off. It’s the processor light that is flashing.
From reading the documentation, this is the ideal state you want the hardwire module to be in.
"Once all desired zones have been
learned, press the “EOL Learn”
button to exit “Enroll Mode”. The
EOL Cal LED will turn OFF
indicating you are no longer in
“Enroll Mode” and all zone LED’s
will turn OFF. "
PROCESSOR LED: Flashes during normal operation
RF XMIT LED: Flashes when RF transmission is being
sent
Hope this is all sorted out and things won’t change overnight as per some of the other HARDWIRE threads that I read tonight and yes I read two pages of them. I found the tamper wire one and I stuck a resistor in there as per the recommendation of another surety employee.
It sounds promising, and I am glad you got it sorted! Yes, we recommend wiring a resistor across the tamper terminals. Do not leave them open.
One other thing to consider regarding tamper alerts and Hardwire 16 sensors, make sure that you learned all of the sensor zones in while they had the appropriate resistor wired in and the sensors themselves were connected.
Unlike the TAKE-345 for 2GIG, the Hardwire 16 registers the resistance of each circuit individually as they are learned in, so if one is learned in by shorting the zone terminals with a wire or resistor, or if you learn in zones and then move them/re-wire them on the Hardwire 16, this would throw off the resistance values because it is still looking for the same resting resistance as when it was learned in.
Just got a call from the Surety monitoring center stating that ZONE 3 is offline. A quick look in the Alarm.com app history section shows that the the “Hardwire Translator” is offline.
Any ideas? I’m remote today and not at the house. I don’t think it’s a power loss, otherwise the panel would have reported a power issue.
“Offline” as an Alarm.com status means that a supervision signal failed, the periodic check in signal with the panel from that sensor. Typically this indicates a weakened signal due to sensor placement/environment.
Are all of your sensor zones through the Hardwire 16? It only looks like there are few listed.
Yes, all sensor zones are though the Hardwire 16. I only started configuring the system recently and have only one door contact and a motion sensor.
I may need to move the Hardwire module, though it functioned for about 24 hours without an issue on Tuesday.
How often does it check in with the panel (heartbeat)? If it syncs back up, will it clear?
Also, do you know what frequency the hardwire module uses? I have a rather dense WiFi mesh network in the house, but if there was interference I’m thinking, it would have been dropping connection a lot more.
Also, do you know what frequency the hardwire module uses?
The hardwire 16 transmits on 319.5 mhz. It should not be affected at all by wifi, but adjacent high voltage cables, excess metal nearby, distance, or other standard RF concerns would limit range.
How often does it check in with the panel (heartbeat)? If it syncs back up, will it clear?
Yes, it would clear if it gets the supervision signal, I believe all Qolsys sensors use a 70 minute supervision interval.
It doesn’t look like that it is an active alert currently. Looks to have already cleared as a trouble condition.
Jason, where do you see that it cleared? Is there some backend access you have to the panel that is not visible to customers? Just curious as to if I can also see this data from the alarm.com app?
Correct, it looks like a “back online” message never populated, but again, we are requesting current status from the panel. The latest status update time for the device is after that 11:50 alert, meaning the status changed again afterward. In fact it looks like it cleared within about 12 minutes of the original report based on what Alarm.com sees. ADC is sending a few commands to see if they will help sync the status history.
Unfortunately the status request is as far as we can test the hardwire 16 remotely as sensors/hardwire 16 themselves cannot be polled, only the panel. The request I’m referring to pulls the latest panel status changes.
Of note, the cellular signal strength is reporting consistently low as well, is the panel itself in a location near metal? Stone walls? Metal roof?
Qolsys panel is on the entrance way to the garage from inside the house. Drywall and wood stud construction, no metal. Verizon is showing 2 bars. Is there a way for me to get a TMobile 4G radio in there versus the Verizon one? I am putting in a TMobile hotspot soon which will give me five bars. Otherwise I’d have to get a Verizon 4G LTE extender.
I’m seeing sensor activity from the sensors you have learned in through it, so the translator is still communicating with the panel, and in Alarm.com I am not seeing any trouble alert status.
Could you post a photo of the panel page where you see the “?”
The hardwire sensor RF XMIT light also is off, just the PROCESSOR light flashes. Is that normal?
The RF Xmit (transmit) light will flash when in the process of sending an Rf signal to the panel. This is normal.
The RF Xmit (transmit) light will flash when in the process of sending an Rf signal to the panel. This is normal.
Ok, awesome - you and I are on the same page then. I left my cell phone recording the hardwire translator and walked around to generate some motion sensor alerts and opened a door and both times the RF XMIT light came on. So the communication is occurring.
Ah thanks for the photo. Yes, that is just the quick status menu and the translator is learned in as a zone. I’ll check with Qolsys to see if they expect to see that from the actual translator zone on an IQ Panel 2 or if it should update its own status.
Either way that shouldn’t have any effect on the hardwired zones.
Ok cool, thanks Jason, it’s just a bad UX/interface design, because a question mark indicates to me that the system is saying, “Unknown,” as in “I don’t recognize or know what do with this sensor.”
