Anyone else have repeated failures of the Qolsys smoke/heat detectors? I just had my FOURTH detector randomly start giving a tamper alert that I can’t resolve. This one was in a spare bedroom - certainly hasn’t been tampered with. Batteries are good. I’ve been through this exact same situation with three other Qolsys smoke detectors in other rooms. In all cases, they’ve been installed and running totally normally, and then totally unexpectedly - boom - throws a tamper alert and I can’t get it to stop, even by manually depressing the tamper switch until I feel it make contact which should close the switch and stop the alert.
I do have hardwired smoke detectors in place and am really considering replacing this Qolsys Smoke/Heat detector with one of the FireFighter sensors. Anyone have experience with these? Good? Bad? Indifferent?
I have the FireFighter one and it works as it should, with my 10 hardwired talking smoke/CO detectors. Tested it a few times so far and it works. So, I would say its good.
How old are those wireless IQ smoke detectors? By batteries are good, do you mean you replaced them recently or you tested them?
As far as the Firefighter goes, if you have interconnected hardwired smokes, it is the most cost effective way of adding fire monitoring. They are solid and we’ve seen very few issues over the years.
I am having the same issue with a Qolsys smoke that will constantly tampers. I have removed the batteries waited over a minute before putting them back and verified the sensor is correctly in its base. Any idea what else maybe the issue?
Ah, so that’s pretty new. Has that sensor worked normally for a while? Or is it newly added and it has been behaving that way the whole time?
If it has always reported tamper, you may have a sensor with a damaged tamper switch, or if it is not reporting anything, double check that batteries aren’t inserted with the wrong polarity. Often when a tamper won’t resolve it is after removing and reinserting the battery (or changing batteries) and the batteries inserted backward, so the last reported signal will not resolve since the device cannot signal.
This was purchased new from Surety. It seemed to work properly, except for the tamper, when installed. The green led blinks periodically. I have removed the batteries waited a minute and put them back. I am unable to clear the tamper.
If you test the detector by holding the test button down until it signals the panel, does the tamper go away once the panel receives that signal? (make sure to place your monitoring account on test mode in the system manager if you have professional monitoring)
If you take the sensor down and bring it closer to the panel, then manually press down the tamper switch, does it update on the panel?
I put the system into test from the system manager. Strangely when I press the test button the smoke detector starts beeping but the alarm panel does not see it. It does not show in the Activity section on Alarm.com either. Although Alarm.com does show the tamper.
When I press what I believe is the tamper switch the panel does not clear the tamper on the panel Active pane.
When testing the IQ Smoke, the test button needs to be held down for at least 5 seconds. Was it?
Does the Sensor ID in programming match what is printed on the smoke? Based on programming, it should be 28812E
The tamper on the sensor is located next to the battery compartment, when the detector is mounted on the base correctly, the tamper tab is pushed in by the mounting plate, when removed (or not mounted flush) the switch will be let go and a tamper will occur.
To confirm, the LED flashes green roughly every 12 seconds?
Normal Operation is a green flash every 12 seconds.
Tamper indicator LED is a Red, yellow, green flash sequence every 12 seconds
I finally located the sensor ID on the smoke detector. It was in small print instead of on a sticker and is 2ACC22. I do not know what device is sensor ID 28812E.
I deleted 28812E from the device list, rebooted the panel, removed the batteries from the smoke for 15 minutes and then added it back at the panel. When I added the smoke back at the panel two sensor ID’s popup when I went to add the device. 2ACC22 and 28812E. I added both. 28812E reported a tamper and 2ACC22 was normal. Both of the sensor ID’s came up as smoke detectors although I only have one smoke and one carbon monoxide detector currently. The CO detector is sensor ID A77EA1 which matches the sticker on the device. I then deleted 28812E again. I then put the panel into test mode, pushed the test button on the smoke detector the smoke and the panel both went into alarm and alarm.com reported the alarm. I am not aware of any missing sensors on the panel. How do I determine what sensor ID 28812E is.
Most frequently if you have an unknown id reporting when trying to pair devices, it is usually due to a motion detector. On rare cases there may be a neighbor’s system using the same frequency sensors and you might accidentally pick up one of their zones during auto-learn.
Do you have any sensors you disabled or removed in the past that might be in a drawer or box somewhere? I’ve seen that occur as well, where an unused device was still powered and sending tamper signals while packed in a box.
