Smoke alarm issues

I received a fire alarm alert on Saturday owing to a malfunctioning sensor. I have two questions.

  1. There is a discrepancy between my records and Alarm.coms sensor mapping. The sensor in question is on the second floor outside the master bedroom and was sounding. I and Alarm.com show this to be sensors numbers 12,13 and 14 labeled “Second Floor smoke, heat and freeze detector”. However, when I was called on Saturday, I was told it was sensor 9,10,11 or “First Floor smoke, heat and freeze”.

I may have inadvertently switched sensors. However, I need to remove the malfunctioning sensor from supervision - basically inactivate it. How can I be sure the correct sensor is removed? I suppose the RF code should do this.

  1. Is this something you can do on your end once we have sorted out which sensor it is?

Looking at the Alarm.com history, no there is no discrepancy. Zone 9 is the Smoke detector which set off an alarm signal.

Zone 12 (13, 14) Currently shows a malfunction, which appears to be signal/supervision related, which may also indicate a dirty sensing element on the detector or a dead battery. This is separate from the alarm signal you are referring to however.

To check the history and signals received from your panel by ADC, you can log into Alarm.com and visit the history tab. Scroll down to the day and time in question.

Zone 9 tripped a fire alarm twice, then it looks like within a ten minute span someone unlocked the door, entered, disarmed the panel, set off a fire panic at the panel, disarmed the alarm panel again, then left and locked the door.

It looks like when the panic was sent the FD was already on scene based on monitoring history, may have just been used to contact and update operators?

Now all that said, yes, we could help with removing the malfunctioning sensor if you are unable to access programming currently, however that sensor is unrelated to the alarm signals that occurred the day you are referencing, so if there was an issue which set off a false alarm it would be a separate issue.

Please confirm if you would like us to remove that malfunctioning sensor (12, 13, 14) for you, or either of the sensors, if you feel there is an issue with the other and no local cause for a false alarm is present.

Thanks. I’m 900 miles away, so trying to deal with remotely. First, there was no smoke or fire. Yes, the FD sent the panic as the Captain thought he was accessing the fire function to disarm it.

Here’s the puzzle. The detector that was sounding was the 2nd floor sensor that I show as 12-14. My neighbor, who was there is confident that the detector that is shown as alarmed (9-first floor) was not sounding when the FD arrived. So it appears that I must have mislabeled their positions.

For now, I suggest you remove 9-11 And 12-14 from my system. I’ll try to get someone in to handle it locally and check error leds, batteries, etc. and replace as necessary and reprogram. Thanks.

My neighbor, who was there is confident that the detector that is shown as alarmed (9-first floor) was not sounding when the FD arrived. So it appears that I must have mislabeled their positions.

Ah, yes that makes sense, the sensor positions are likely just swapped.

For now, I suggest you remove 9-11 And 12-14 from my system. I’ll try to get someone in to handle it locally and check error leds, batteries, etc. and replace as necessary and reprogram. Thanks.

Happy to help. We’ve sent a command to remove those zones. Allow about 5-10 minutes for that to take effect. The zones should then be removed from your sensor list and you can confirm this by logging into Alarm.com.

Also, neither sensor shows LED trouble indicator - both are green flashing.

If the sensor showing a malfunction does not produce a trouble beep, it is likely a true sensor signaling issue. To test you can move that sensor closer to the panel and program it as a no response type sensor for a while. See if you notice similar supervision malfunctions in a closer location.

If it is already very close to the panel, you may have a sensor with a failing radio.