April 2023 Archives

Alarm.com has made some nice feature enhancements for video customers. They will now have support for some 3rd party cameras. They've bumped up the maximum number of supported cameras to 64. They have introduced clip limit Auto-Restart. And perimeter guard is now available for ADC-VDB770 customers.

Alarm.com offers a wide range of video products. These include many different cameras and video doorbells. They continuously work on strengthening their video portfolio. Alarm.com, besides continuing to release new products, also focuses on improving current offerings. This announcement is proof of their dedication to their video customers.

Alarm.com has announced it will now support some 3rd-party camera setups. This enhancement is available for business accounts only. They will now make it possible to integrate hardwired cameras that use ONVIF Profile S and VAPIX communication protocols, to allow for operation with the Pro Series CSVR (ADC-CSVR2000P, ADC-CSVR2008P, or ADC-CSVR2016P). Businesses with those current video setups do not need to replace their entire camera lineup in order to begin using the features of alarm.com. This allows customers to begin taking advantage of things such as live view, 24/7 recording, and the SVR timeline, all accessible via Alarm.com website or mobile app (available for iPhone and Android devices).

Alarm.com will also allow twenty-five (25) live video feeds on a single Live View tab. Now you can live stream on more cameras, all at once. Making it easier to monitor or follow desired activity.

They have also bumped up the total number of cameras per location. Previously, it was 40 cameras max. Alarm.com will now allow a maximum of 64 cameras before requiring a second "location" to be set up. This enhancement is available for residential and commercial video services. Alarm Grid video customers still receive a max of eight (8) cameras per video package, but will no longer require the addition of a second location on their account for cameras 41-64.

Alarm.com still imposes a clip limit per service package. So, it is still important to set up your recording rules so that your cameras are only capturing the desired activity. For Alarm Grid Video customers, if you are surpassing your monthly limit every month, please contact us to discuss your options. For those customers who run into a "high" activity month from time to time, Alarm.com will auto-restart your recording rules on the first day of the following month. Previously, customers would have to log in on the first of the month to manually restart their recording rules. This update will only apply to cloud-saved clips. Clips will always continue to record on SVRs and onboard recording cameras.

Also, for customers with an ADC-VDB770, Alarm.com will now offer the Perimeter Guard feature. Perimeter Guard uses video analytics to detect people and then react with attention-grabbing audio alerts (for supported cameras) and blinking LED lights. The purpose is to alert unwanted guests and deter malicious activity. This has been available for some time on certain cameras, but will now be available on the ADC-VBD770 video doorbell. This feature is configured using the Customer Website or Customer app as part of the Video Analytics rules. There you choose your audio alert and LED options, for when the detection occurs.

Alarm.com has also updated their latest WIFI cameras to include manually-triggered warning sounds. Use this on-demand feature to deter potential intruders when you spot them in real-time. It can also be used after receiving a notification about unwanted activity. Access the desired camera from the customer website only, to manually activate warning sounds. This will sound an alert for thirty (30) seconds or until you manually turn it off. This feature is now available on ADC-V523, ADC-V523X, ADC-V724, ADC-V724X, ADC-VC727P, and ADC-VC728PF (LED only) cameras. This option is not offered on the mobile app at the time of this writing.

To round up our list of features and enhancements, there are improvements that will be coming to the Alarm.com mobile app. These are not yet available but will include bottom navigation for easier accessibility. The purpose is to provide a faster, more streamlined, and more intuitive experience for all. An all-new activity feed with video clips and grouped events will also be added. Alarm.com will also include more modern, easy-to-use controls that better utilize the entire mobile screen, with refreshed action sheets. They will also provide additional performance and visual enhancements to improve the overall app experience. This provides us with some cool stuff to look forward to.

Check out some of the new enhancements and let us know how you are enjoying them. Please feel free to comment below and share your experience.

We have recently become aware of a potential incompatibility issue between certain older First Alert panels and touchscreen keypads. Some older panel boards with newer chips have experienced this. Unfortunately, we do not have all the details, but we will share an example of one we ran into.

The First Alert Professional program was designed as a dealer program to allow smaller alarm dealers to have some of the same advantages as very large dealers. To accomplish this, they built Vista panels with slight variations and only sold them to dealers who were members of the program. The FA168CPS and FA148CP were two of the most popular panels in that line-up. These panels were, at their base, the same as a VISTA-20P and VISTA-15P respectively. In recent years, Honeywell, now known as Resideo, has ended the First Alert Professional Program.

The First Alert Professional program was very popular, so there are many of these panels still in use today. The thing that makes a panel First Alert vs. VISTA is a difference in the panel circuit board. The chips for a VISTA-20P and a FA168CPS, for example, are exactly the same. Because of this, it has become a popular custom to swap out the older version prom chip for a newer prom chip when an update is necessary.

For many years, this has been common practice and there have been no issues. Unfortunately, with newer technology in the keypads, and advancements in the industry, we are beginning to hear about some minor issues. So, upgrading the prom may not allow everything to function as expected.

There are two ways to tell if your panel is a First Alert version. First, the original prom will have a FA version at the bottom of the label.

Secondly, there is a label stuck underneath the phone line terminals on the terminal block.

We recently ran into a FA148CP board with a manufacture date of T070. The date code is located on a small white label near the top of the panel. The Letter T indicates that this panel was manufactured in 2013, and the 070 indicates that it was manufactured on the 70th day of that year. So this panel was manufactured in March 2013. This panel had a rev 9.12 chip, which was the current revision as of its manufacture date. While the prom was never changed, the customer still had a small issue with the new Honeywell Home Tuxedo he added.

This particular customer intended to use night stay arming mode. Night Stay allows you to arm certain motion detectors, while bypassing others automatically. While the Tuxedo supports this mode when setup properly in the panel, this particular customer's Night Stay option was grayed out on the Tuxedo keypad. This seems to only occur with the newer versions of the Tuxedo. Those being the Honeywell Home Tuxedo and the Resideo Tuxedo. This issue does not seem to appear with the old Tuxedo Touch WIFI. It could possibly affect the Honeywell 6290W touchscreen as well, but there are no reports of that as of this writing.

In talks with Resideo, they informed us that they had noticed similar behavior with a previous customer when using an older revision First Alert panel board with a newer chip installed. They indicated that when this is the issue, the only fix is to replace the panel board. While we are trying to get more details on this issue, we wanted to make our readers aware of the information that we do know. Please feel free to let us know in the comments if you have seen any oddities with a First Alert panel and a touchscreen keypad.