Honeywell Lyric Controller MR4 Firmware Released

Posted By

Last month, Honeywell released a new critical firmware update for the Lyric Controller - 01.04.07178.491 for the American version (shown below) and 01.04.07181.491 for the Canadian LCP500-LC version:

You can request the update on your Lyric system, if you aren't upgraded already, by pressing Security > Tools > entering your Installer Code and then pressing Update Firmware. If you are an Alarm Grid monitored customer, you can also have us send a firmware update to your system remotely. This MR4 firmware brings new functionality that our users have been asking for since the Lyric Controller was first released, new features that were not yet available and fixes to some known bugs.

Quick SiX Programming Mode

While this new feature won't help those that already have their Lyric system fully setup, the addition of a new SiX sensor enrollment mode allows new Lyric users to greatly reduce the time it takes to program SiX Series sensors to the system. Of course, the new SiX Programming option would certainly also be helpful for anyone that has an existing Lyric and is looking to add multiple new SiX devices to their system.

The Lyric has always offered a batch enrollment mode, available within the Zones programming screen, that allows you to learn in a group of SiX devices by simply powering on or activating each sensor. However, you would then need to go in and manually edit each zone by selecting the zone number and clicking Edit, tweaking each programming option and then saving the changes as you would if you were learning in one single sensor.

Now, with the new SiX Programming mode (found by pressing the down arrow once you enter programming mode on a Lyric with the MR4 firmware)


(SiX Programming option on second page of Lyric programming)

you can simply power on (either pull the battery tab or insert batteries) or activate each SiX sensor you want to learn in to the panel to have them all auto learn to the panel and show a screen with all the new learned in devices


(SiXCT and SiXPIR activated in SiX Programming mode)

and you can highlight and click Edit right from that screen to bring up a new screen that shows you all of the device settings so you can set all of your new zones and settings much more efficiently.


(SiXPIR and SiXCT edit screens in SiX Programming mode)

The new SiX Programming mode can save you hours depending on how many SiX devices you need to learn to your Lyric. Keep in mind though, just like with the batch enrollment mode, you can't enroll a SiXFOB to your Lyric using SiX Programming. You still need to use the Keys section of the Lyric programming to enroll a SiXFOB.

Easier Instant Arming Mode

For as long as we can remember, Honeywell systems have supported an Instant arming mode which allows a user to arm the system so that the system's alarm activates as soon as a zone is triggered, even if the zone is normally an entry/exit zone. Instant arming is helpful for ramping up the security of your system when you know that no one should be entering the home (at night or when you go on vacation for instance). Instead of an intruder being able to open your main front door without the alarm going off right away, Instant arming ensures that the Lyric goes into full alarm mode as soon as any door or window is opened. As long as you remember to disarm from a key fob or TC2 before an authorized user needs to enter the property, Instant arming is a great way to enhance your protection at key times.

When Honeywell developed the Lyric they didn't provide an Instant button on the Security screen and many users lamented the loss of Instant arming. The Lyric does in fact allow for Instant arming if you use the Arm Custom option which gets you to a screen where you can de-select the Entry Delay and arm the system so that delayed zones activate the alarm as soon as they are violated but it isn't a great user experience. We had a good amount of feedback from users that had upgraded Honeywell systems that supported Instant arming to the Lyric and were disappointed that arming in that way was more difficult on the Lyric. Thankfully, Honeywell has heard our cries and with the MR4 firmware, you'll notice when you hit the Security icon on your Lyric screen there is an Entry Delay: On/Off toggle at the bottom left of the screen.


If you want to arm Instant (motion detector zones turned off but all other zones active with no entry delay even if programmed as an entry/exit zone), simply tap the Entry Delay words until it shows OFF and then tap Arm Stay and enter your code. If you want to arm Maximum (all zones active with no entry delay even if programmed as an entry/exit zone), simply tap Arm Away with the Entry Delay set to OFF and then tap Arm Away and enter your code.

Skybell Doorbell Chime

You may have noticed if you press Tools and enter your Master Code and then the right arrow, there's a Skybell Setup button. If you did, you probably have wondered why pressing it does nothing. For some reason Honeywell released the Skybell Setup button on a previous Lyric firmware but didn't add the true functionality of the button until the new MR4 firmware. You could still pair a Skybell with a Total Connect 2.0 account but the Skybell wouldn't integrate with the actual Lyric system at all.

Now, pressing the Skybell Setup button allows you to integrate your doorbell camera (the round Skybell HD and Skybell Slim HD) to the Lyric Controller so that if someone presses your Skybell's doorbell, the Lyric sounds one of it's unique Chime tones. You can choose which Chime sound you want during the Skybell Setup process.

Smoke Maintenance Signaling

With MR4 firmware, the Lyric can now trigger a maintenance trouble signal if a connected SiXSMOKE detects that it's sensing chamber has too much dust or dirt for the detector to function properly. Similar to programming a loop 2 maintenance trouble zone for a 5808W3 smoke detector, you'll now know in advance if any of your connected Honeywell smoke detectors need cleaning.

Support of Yale Assure Locks

The Lyric's Automation controller provides support of Z-Wave locks so that you can program the system to auto-arm when you lock your door or auto-disarm your system when you unlock your door. If you have Total Connect 2.0 you can even remotely lock/unlock your doors. We recommend Yale, Kwikset and Schlage locks when connecting Z-Wave locks to your Lyric and with the MR4, the Lyric now officially supports Yale's range of Real Living Assure Locks, the YRD216, YRD226 and the key-free YRD246. We'll have these new Yale Z-Wave locks up on our site in the Home Automation section soon.

Fixed Lyric Keypad Bug

Sometime prior to MR4, we found that if you had an LKP500 Lyric keypad connected to your Lyric system and you had the Lyric's Voice setting disabled, the Lyric keypad would not provide the expected entry tones (beeps when you violate an entry/exit zone warning you that you need to disarm the system to avoid an alarm activation) even if the Entry Tone feature was enabled in the keypad settings.

Once your Lyric is on the MR4 firmware, if you like your system's Voice setting disabled, because you don't want to hear the main panel's voice announcements, you'll still be able to have your auxiliary keypads beep at you to warn you that you must disarm your system when coming home. As it's easy to forget your system was armed if your keypad doesn't beep at you, this is a critical fix for any Lyric user that prefers not to have the Voice setting enabled.

Fixed Lyric Thermostat Bug

We had a customer that noticed that once he connected his Lyric thermostat to his Lyric system, the Lyric was excessively pinging out to the Honeywell servers. We reported the strange IP behavior to Honeywell's engineers and after some testing they were able to replicate the issue and assured us that a fix would be coming. Our customer decided to remove the Lyric thermostat integration from his system for the time being.

Once MR4 was released, we had our user test the Lyric thermostat integration to his Lyric system and this time there was no unusual pings from the panel on his network so we are confident that this Lyric bug has been squashed.

Dealer Branding

The last change that MR4 firmware brings to the Lyric system is the new dealer branding feature. With this new feature, a Honeywell Lyric dealer's company splash page will show as one the Lyric slideshow images as long as the feature is enabled. Any Alarm Grid monitored client will see this image scroll through on their slide show:


In addition to the slide show page, the dealer branding also shows up as a small company logo on the bottom left of the Lyric home screen that you can click to get to a contact information page in case you need to get in touch with us for support.

If you have any questions about this feature of any of the new features and updates and fixes that the latest Lyric firmware brings to Honeywell's aware winning system, please let us know in the comments below or email us at support@alarmgrid.com.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments

Thank you. That worked...
Yes, you can integrate the Skybell to the Lyric for the doorbell chime feature by following the steps listed at https://www.alarmgrid.com/documents/lyric-firmware-enhancement-for-skybell-integration as long as your Lyric is running MR4 firmware. Do you know if your Lyric has that firmware currently? Unfortunately, we haven't heard of any plans to allow viewing of the Skybell from the Lyric though. At this time, only the legacy IPCAMs can be viewed from the Lyric.
Has there been any updates on this? I'd like to integrate my Skybell into my Lyric panel. If I cant get video I would at least like the panel to "chime" as the article indicates it would be able to. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
Sorry - I should have been clearer. I'm familiar with adding Skybell to my TC 2.0 app and all associated functionality. What I was referring to is the video doorbell/skybell option inside the Lyric's programming, not Total Connect.
This link should help you : https://www.alarmgrid.com/documents/skybell-dbcam-dbcam-trim-total-connect-2-0-integration-guide
Hey all - has anyone figured out how to actually pair a Skybell with the Lyric? If so - what functionality does it actually have?
Gotcha
We have seen some MR3 versions that didn't update locally but haven't been able to tell why and in all those cases, the panel did update fine to MR4 once activated.
I get that but this was in reply to Sterling's other replies above that you should be able to upgrade a non-monitored Lyric's firmware.
Once we register the system we can push the firmware update. the panel cannot get updates until it is registered to Honeywell servers.
I just bought a Lyric from you and installed it today. Monitoring not setup yet but I definitely am not able to update firmware, the button is greyed out It shipped with a older system version. 01.03.06590.482
What rev number was showing in your System Information page? You should be able to upgrade a non-monitored Lyric's firmware as far as we know. Our Self Bronze plan would certainly not restrict access to HomeKit but if you also have Z-Wave devices, the Lyric won't allow for local Z-Wave scene control once a Total Connect 2.0 account is associated so you'd need to be on the Self Silver plan for $15/month if you wanted HomeKit and Z-Wave scene control as the Self Silver plan is the one that wraps in remote Total Connect 2.0 Z-Wave control. This is an odd quirk with the Lyric systems. We've already asked Honeywell to update the systems so that if you have a TC2 account with no Z-Wave access, you can still control Z-Wave scenes locally but we aren't sure if or when they will ever bring that change to the Lyric system.
Yes. Apparently firmware cannot be upgraded if not subscribed to service unlike the GC3 which leads me to wonder what those that originally bought their system as a "noise maker" are doing. I'm assuming they'll always remain on the initial revision that came loaded on the panel? On another topic, does your self-bronze restrict access to creating smart scenes and homekit? My current provider only offers this with an upgraded package so I'm looking to change providers once my contract is up. Lastly, can the instant arming mode be utilized in stay mode as well? I'd test it but I dont want to trigger a false alarm.
Are you experiencing the same behavior? If so, what is the rev number you see in the System Information page?
What rev# are you showing in System Information now?
Did you ever figure out solution to the grey out after being selected?
I appreciate your reply Nick. While I do agree that Alarm.com tends to be a leader in their offerings of interactive services, Honeywell/AlarmNet have made some huge improvements over the past year that keep them at least competitive. We always have our "wants" from all of our service providers as none are perfect but the good news is we offer systems that work with both Alarm.com and Honeywell's Total Connect 2.0 service so that you can choose whatever system and service you prefer and still be able to use us for our no-contract, low-cost alarm monitoring services. We hope to work with you soon and if you have any questions on what system and devices to order, we'd be happy to help.
Hi Sterling, I really apologize about my lack of responsiveness, I was out of the country. I do want to say that people post when they have an issue, not when things are going as expected. So I do want to say that your customer service is incredible, and you guys go above and beyond in attempting to make things right for your customers. It's impressive to say the least. At this point, I think it's very evident that alarm.com is focused on innovation, while Honeywell is proceeding at a pace that won't keep them current, much less getting them at, or ahead, of the level their competitors are at. I also understand that you can't control how your 3rd parties operate. You've been very professional in how you address the issues with Honeywell. I'll most likely purchase a alarm.com compatible panel, and a translator to get my sensors integrated. I'll be buying both the hardware and monitoring from you guys, since you go to such great lengths to address your customers concerns.
We have tried emailing you quite a few times to find out what account you are signed up under with us and haven't heard back. If you do want us to remove your Alarm Grid slideshow image, just email support@alarmgrid.com or give us a call.
Hi Nick, We haven't heard back from you yet but we have some good news. Honeywell can remove the image as requested and are working on a way to give us, the dealer, more control of when it shows and when it doesn't. If you can email support@alarmgrid.com and provide us with your account name, we'll make sure to get your Alarm Grid splash page image removed from your slideshow as soon as possible. Also, for others that have this issue, we're told Honeywell is working on a way to make it easier for a alarm dealer to remove the image when requested by the customer so hopefully removing the image becomes a much easier process soon.
Hi Nick, We don't seem to have this email associated with any orders or monitoring service plans. Can you let us know what email is associated with your account (feel free to email support@alarmgrid.com if you don't want to post it here)? As for your comments, we completely agree and we were as shocked as you were once Honeywell released the new Dealer Branding feature with the MR4 firmware and didn't allow us to remove that slide show image. As soon as we got notice that this change was being made, we reached out to our contacts there to find out a way to be able to not have that image load. We're still working with them on a fix and plan to have it available soon. Once we know which account you are, I'll make sure to reach out once the fix is implemented so that you don't have to deal with our company splash page in your personal slide show. While we also do agree that it was embarrassing that Honeywell left TC2 on a Flash based website for as long as they did, we are seeing some encouraging signs from them that they are finally catching up and getting things in line with what you'd expect. There was some corporate restructuring recently and they've given us an indication that the security division will have better investment for their software engineering team now that it's being spun off. With all of that said, we do also sell systems that work with Alarm.com and offer Alarm.com service through our no-contract monitoring plans so if you did decide the Lyric wasn't right for you, we do have other options.
I am at a loss for words over the change to the slide-show feature. The slide-show exists because people want to look at pictures they took, on a device they own. What gives you the right to inject advertising onto my device? You provide me alarm service, and I provide you with a payment. At no point did these terms include you taking advantage of access to a device I own, and injecting advertising I don't want. Do you plan on paying me a certain amount of money every time your picture comes up? What percentage of your customers do you think would want to see your 'alarmgrid' advertisement on what's supposed to be a personalized slideshow? Clearly Honeywell is focused on 3rd party resellers, and not the true consumer. The reality is, I took the advice of this site, and purchased a Honeywell panel. I spent hundreds of dollars on a panel that in no way reflects hardware at the price level it's sold for. For example, the fact there is noticeable lag in the UI for something as simple as entering your code speaks volumes of the processor and memory used to build this thing. Another clear example is that, up until a month or so ago, TotalConnect was flash based. What self respecting company has used flash in the last several years? It's clear that Honeywell does not innovate on their products. Their focus is maximizing profit by using out-dated technology, and relying on 3rd parties to sell it to consumers who don't know better. It's ridiculous to see Honeywell pat itself on the back for html5, while alarm.com remains far more advanced. I'll probably be calling and ask for a full refund of my lyric panel, as you/Honeywell have taken advantage of the access you have on it, to essentially hijack the display that I own.
Done. And I have my door sensors sending notifications when they are opened. Works great so far. AT LAST!!! Will assess stability and then start combining with Home automations with lights, etc.
Using an iOS device that's within a few feet of your Lyric and has WIFI and Bluetooth enabled, launch the Home app and select the Lyric system from the available accessories. Your should then see a keypad displayed on your Lyric screen and you'll need to enter your Master Code at the panel. After doing so, an 8 digit HomeKit setup code should appear on the Lyric screen and you can use your iOS camera window in the Home app to capture the code (or you can manually enter it) and then you press Identify Accessory in the Home app. once the Lyric beeps three times, you should be able to hit Done in the app and have it integrated properly. Let us know if you run into any issues and we'll be curious to hear your thoughts on the integration once you've set it up.
So how do I add the Lyric to my Home app?
As it turns out, MR4 actually did unlock Homekit support for the Lyric and Honeywell was just waiting on Appel's approval so they didn't detail it in the firmware release notes. Apple has now approved it and a Lyric running MR4 will support Homekit now. We'll be posting more about the integration once we've had a chance to test the functionality.
Having the similar issue as well. For some reason I've never been able to upgrade ever on my end. I can push the upgrade button but then it becomes grayed out and nothing happens.
We have some hope it may be out before the end of the year or shortly thereafter but we understand the frustration as it's certainly been delayed much longer than expected. We'll certainly let you know once it's available.
And still no homekit. I’ve been delaying buying the Lyric on the promise of homekit integration. Which I now believe is a promise broken, and I’ll keep delaying until someone else does it.
I would imagine you are already on the latest version if your 'Update firmware' button is grayed out. You can read about the latest firmware at https://www.alarmgrid.com/blog/honeywell-lyric-controller-mr4-firmware-released and if you press Tools > enter Master Code > System Information, you can verify if you are on the latest version or not. If you are not, we can always get you upgraded once you are activated but you should be able to upgrade now before you're activated as well.
Can I update the firmware before getting connected to a monitoring service? When I enter the installer code the update firmware option is greyed out. I am connected to WiFi. I will get a monitoring service soon, but my old system is currently being monitored and I figured I would try to get my new one ready to go before pulling the plug on the old one.

Related Products

Honeywell Lyric Controller - Encrypted Wireless Security System
Honeywell Lyric Alarm System
Encrypted, HomeKit, Wireless Security System
Honeywell LKP500 - WIreless Keypad for Lyric Controller
Honeywell LKP500
Wireless Keypad for Lyric Controller

Related Categories