Stay vs. Away

Support
,
1

My old Ademco alarm had 4 scenarios for arming:

  1. Maximum (all sensors engaged no delay)
  2. Immediate (perimeter doors armed, motions bypassed, no delay)
  3. Away (all sensors engaged with delay)
  4. Stay (perimeter doors armed, motions bypassed, with delay)

These 4 met my needs, although admittedly I used #1 and #3 most of the time. With 2GIG, can I mimic scenes #1 and #3 with the stay/away functions staying true to the descriptions in parenthesis? It’s a shame that there can’t be 4 scenarios.

2

Yes, 2GIG can do all 4 of those. When you arm there is a checkbox for “entry delay” that is checked by default. If you uncheck that box there will be no entry delay, all sensors will be immediate. The same is true when arming remotely through Alarm.com, there is an “entry delay” checkbox that is checked by default but you can uncheck when you arm.

  1. Arm away and uncheck “entry delay”.
  2. Arm stay and uncheck “entry delay”.
  3. Arm away and leave “entry delay” checked.
  4. Arm stay and leave “entry delay” checked.
3

Thanks Ryan, what you listed here makes sense. One more thing I am trying to wrap my head around is if I want to Arm with full protection while I am sleeping then I would arm with away and uncheck entry delay to get maximum protection assuming motions are set to follow, right? That just seems odd to set an alarm to away when going to sleep at night.

This of course assuming I want to use stay with motions not set to perimeter.

4

The functions are named “Away” and “Stay” for simplicity, really. The only difference between the two on a 2GIG Panel is the arming state of interior followers. Qolsys has a few more options to differentiate the two.

Think of them as “All sensors” and “Perimeter.” Typically while arming “Stay” you would remain in the home, but this is not always the case. (You might be leaving, but a family member is sleeping inside still, or pets are freely roaming and you want to not arm motion detectors.)

It was a design choice mimicked by Qolsys. Instead of having four buttons for arming options, you have three with the same functionality of the four.

5

Is it correct then if I want my family to arm the system at night and I want full protection for them, I should instruct them to arm away with no delay?

6

Correct, you would arm away and un-check the entry delay box.

7

Thanks for confirming. That’s a shame that the makers of 2GIG thought that design choice makes sense. That is so non-intuitive especially explaining that to a family on how to arm the alarm. Thanks for your help.

8

Really?

You think “Immediate”, " maximum", “away” , and “stay” is more intuitive?

To me arm away and arm stay with option to uncheck a delay entry, is far more simple… Away arms everything including interior motions, arm stay is usually everything BUT motions. Simple.

9

Using just the words stay and away is a little confusing when you’re arming stay at night. It was a design choice 2GIG made to keep it simple for less advanced users who get confused easily by the variety of arming modes with generic names like maximum and immediate.

I’ve been asking 2GIG for years to develop customizable arming modes so arming can be treated like home automation scenes. Then you or your dealer could program arming modes/scenes with very descriptive names that fit perfectly with your home and the way you use your system. For example: Away, Home, Sleep, Babysitter, Party, Housekeeper, etc…

I ask for a lot of things though and get very few of them. :wink:

10

They should listen to you! You are doing them a favor by giving them free and very good advice. Thanks for trying anyway. I’m assuming they are done with any major changes to firmware with the new panel coming out.

11

Probably. Let’s hope they knock it out of the park with GC3.