New 2gig owner here. Installed it over the weekend and love it so far! Thanks to Lora for pre-configuring the system and shipping it out so fast!
Ok, so I tried to search this first, but didn’t see that the forum has a search function. For future reference does it?
On to my questions. I installed a 2gig motion sensor in my backyard un-insulated workshop (made of metal). I live in San Diego, so while it doesn’t stay too cold for too long it does dip down into the low 30s at night during the winter. The workshop is about 50 feet from the panel (but obviously has some obstacles with walls and such). I changed the config from default (motion follower) to have it set as perimeter because I want it armed when in “stay” mode. Not sure if that makes any difference but the issue I’m having is that it is reporting “open” and stopped communicating with the panel this morning. It’s all intermittent, but I suspect the signal strength isn’t up for the task. I did see that during my walk test it reported 4 bars of signal…but that was also with the door open to the shop. So - I’d love to hear some thoughts on how to get this to work or if I need another brand. I see the Honeywell PIR is a popular choice in difficult conditions.
My second question is - how do I suppress the tone sounds when the screen is being touched? It gets quite obnoxious when trying to do anything besides arm/disarm the system. There’s got to be a way, but I just haven’t figure out how yet!
The low 30’s isn’t a problem temperature-wise. I think the biggest problem is that the shed is made of metal. RF signal does not go through metal at all. I doubt that any wireless motion detector would work better, the metal would still be an issue. Unfortunately this isn’t an easy problem.
I think your best best would be to get a wired motion detector and wire it to an RE201 transmitter that you put outside the shed. Put the RE201 in a waterproof PVC box you can get from any hardware store and mount the box on the outside of the shed facing the house.
The problem now is that you need to power the wired motion detector. You need a 12VDC power supply but then you run into another issue… Every time the power goes out in the shed the normally closed sensor output on the wired motion detector will open and trigger the alarm like it’s detecting motion so you’ll get false alarms. To solve this you need a battery backup for the motion detector power. The Honeywell HPL624 is a 12V power supply that will power the motion detector and also charge a 12V backup battery.
I wish I had an easier answer for you but putting a wireless sensor in a shed that’s made of metal is a tough problem.
Of course you can always run a wire from the shed to the 2GIG panel and use one of the wired sensor inputs on the 2GIG panel but I’m assuming that running a wire would be difficult too. If you do decide to run the wire make sure you use a 4-wire cable, 2 for power and 2 for the sensor input.
There is no way to turn off the beep when you touch the screen. Currently the only thing you can do is turn the volume down. Turning off the beep is something people ask for regularly and we’ve put in requests for that to be added to future firmware versions.
The forum does have search but as I am just now noticing the search bar only shows up on the top level forum page, not once you enter a particular topic. I’ll pass that feedback along to the web developer to improve it. Thanks for letting us know!
Thanks Ryan - I appreciate the quick response. So long answer short, it doesn’t look like a motion detector will be in my workshop’s future. Still, thanks for the thorough response.
Also, please keep up the pressure on the firmware fix to get rid of those key tone sounds. My wife wanted to throw the thing out of the window this weekend while I was working on it. I ended up taking it outside play with it.
They program those panels in a room right by my office and it drives me crazy when they don’t turn the volume down. I recommend turning the volume all the way down while programming and then turning it back up when you’re done. Just go to Security -> Menu -> Toolbox -> brightness/volume.
Hi Ryan - a quick follow up. Since the 2GiG motion sensor worked sometimes I figured there was enough signal strength out to my workshop to try using another brand motion sensor. I installed a Honeywell 5800PIR over the weekend and knock on wood (or metal in the case of my shop), it seems to be working. I’ve not had any malfunctions or loss of signal messages. I relocated the 2GIG sensor to my office and all seems good there also. So this seemed to work for my situation. Thanks again for the help.
Just wanted to add my name to the list of requests to disable the keypad beep. We have the 2GIG doorbell as well so we keep the volume fairly high, so when I do the volume turn down trick I get several very loud DINGDONGs before it gets quiet. I can’t work on it in the evening unless I plan ahead, lest I wake the baby and get in real trouble.
I also would like to disable the beep, it’s not necessary. It’s loud enough to wake up whoever might be sleeping at the time. I wanted a touch screen model, but I can never use it due to the noise so I just use my phone now. Thanks for checking on adding this setting.
Yeah, it’s about as useful as the keyboard clicking and vibration that you have to disable every time you get a new cell phone. I too would like to disable that beeping.
Still, thanks for the thorough response.