Honeywell L5100 Posts

Welcome to another Wednesday and another edition of Ask Sterling. This week, Frank from New Hampshire wants to know how to set the House ID on his Honeywell L5100.

If you're first wondering what a House ID is, I'm glad you asked. The House ID is used for bi-directional devices that communicate back to your Honeywell Lynx Touch L5100.

A good example would be a a bi-directional key fob like the Honeywell 5804BD that wants to send signals to your panel and also can get status of from your panel.

So now that you know what a House ID is, I'm sure you're eager to set yours up or change yours on your L5100. To change this setting, just follow our useful video below:

If you have any questions you would like to see answered in our Ask Sterling series, please ask below in the comments or send us an email at support@alarmgrid.com.

We hope this never happens to any of our clients, but what happens if a burglar forces you to disarm your system as you enter your home?

Well, luckily the Honeywell L5100 has the duress code feature and Eric from Washington asked us an amazing question, "how do I set the duress code on a Honeywell L5100 panel?"

In this video, we go over the details of a duress signal code and how you set it on the Honeywell LYNX 5100 panel.  

As usual, if you have any questions you'd like to see answered in our Ask Sterling series, either email us at support@alarmgrid.com or ask below in the comments.

So now that our fearless leader is hitched and I'm not off to any weddings, it's time to return to what I'm sure is everyone's favorite part of Friday: the Owner DIY Blog!

As I introduced in my blog post two weeks ago, I have a Honeywell LYNX L5100  system installed in my home. But it didn't just install itself. I'm here to document how we did it!

So a little background on my house. Like many people in Florida who hate putting up shutters on their second floor, I have high impact Hurricane windows and doors.  

And I don't just have them. I have a LOT of them. Being an older, remodeled home, I have them in all shapes and sizes. French doors, sliding glass doors, and way too many windows.

So when it came time to designing my security system, we had to put a lot of thought into picking the right door and window sensors.

First, let's consider the windows. There's a ton of them and clearly we want to protect that method of entry. 

Since there's over 40 of them (many of the windows are double-hung and multiple panels per opening), we had to rule out wireless window sensors. Even at those affordable Alarm Grid prices, they're unrealistic in that quantity.

We couldn't even use glass break detectors. Impact glass functions a lot like bullet proof glass. It won't shatter and set off the detectors.

So we settled on a few motion detectors placed cleverly throughout the house. Luckily since my manly 9 pound Shih Tzu just squeezes under the 80 lb limit of the Honeywell 5800PIR-RES, the choice of which one to use was obvious.

Need help installing yours? We have a great Honeywell 5800PIR-RES installation video.

With three of those placed in rooms with entryways and hallways outside the rest of the rooms, it was time to move on to the doors. Oh the many doors.

Since I'm a snob, I knew the standard and popular Honeywell 5816 just wasn't thin enough for me. I needed the slightly more expensive, but way more discreet Honeywell 5811.

For the many sliding glass doors, I needed to install two door sensors per door because the doors could open from either direction. Looking for help? We have a great video showing how to install door sensors on a sliding glass door.

For the French doors / double front door? Luckily, one side was a dummy / passive door that locked into the frame. We were able to get away with just one sensor on the active side. Again, we have a great French door installation video for the 5811.

Any questions or concerns on how to design your security system? Next up we'll go over some of the cool stuff we did with Z-Wave. 

This week on Ask Sterling, we're heading back to basics as Andrew from Kalamazoo asks how to arm and disarm a Honeywell L5100.

Due to the touch screen nature of the Honeywell LYNX 5100, combined with the multiple arming modes, we can see the confusion!

Let me walk you through the difference between Armed Stay and Armed Away in this video and how to arm and disarm your system:

As usual, if you have any questions you'd like me to cover in my next video or in our security FAQ section, please ask in the comments or send us an email!

Much like those cheesy Hair Club for Men commercials of the 90s, I'm proud to say, I'm not just one of the founders of Alarm Grid, I'm also a client!

In case you're wondering, yes, I even pay the same as everyone else!  Alarm Grid's prices are already so low, I gladly pay the same monitoring prices.

So, every week I'd like to highlight a different aspect of my alarm system I love and hopefully cover some cool features you might not even know you have!

First, some background.  Like most of you, I don't come from an alarm background.  This system?  The first one I've ever installed.

My previous house already had a Brinks system installed.  So I, like many people, just paid a silly amount to activate the thing and never even realized the cool stuff that was out there.  It was literally a fixed panel with 3 sensors that I paid close to $40 a month for.  What a silly waste!

So, of course, when I moved into my current house, I called up the usual big guys.  They came out, quoted astronomical prices to cover my home's many openings (4 sliding glass doors each requiring two sensors were just the beginning!) and required long term contracts.

After paying enough early termination fees in my life, I decided to make the unfortunate choice of just putting off my alarm system.  That's never an acceptable solution.

Luckily, I soon discovered the Honeywell L5100 and Total Connect 2.0.  It was love at first site.

A panel that required NO wires (except for its power supply) and offered remote control and  Z-Wave?  As a huge gadget geek that always tried and failed to wire smart homes in the past, I knew I met the panel of my dreams.

Now finding the service?  That was obviously an even easier decision for me.  And hopefully after you meet our amazing staff and learn about our incredible service, it will be an easy choice for you.

So stick with me over the coming weeks and learn about my security system and the cool stuff I'm doing every Friday.  

Hey DIYers, it's Sterling here with my weekly column, "Ask Sterling." Every week I'll answer one of your questions and feature it here on the blog.

This week's question comes from John in Washington. John asked a basic, but important question, "How do you turn on a Honeywell L5100?"

Since the panel does not come with an easy power cable like the LT-CABLE by default, that's a solid question!

In the following video, I show John how to open the L5100 control panel and connect the LT-CABLE to the L5100. I also show how to connect the other end of the LT-CABLE to the LYNX Touch power supply.  Oh, and, of course, how to power it on!

Also, if you have any questions you'd like to see answered in Ask Sterling, ask below in the comments!

We have made lots and lots of videos that we are going to be trickling out over the next few months. We hope you love these, and we invite you to subscribe to the Alarm Grid YouTube channel (which you should definitely subscribe to).

We will be blogging about these videos twice a week. One on Monday and one on Friday. They are mostly DIY install videos designed to teach you everything from how to program sensors into your system to little segments about what makes each product unique.

This first video is simple. If you have one of Honeywell's much loved LYNX Touch control panels, then these first few segments will be very helpful. Today, I'm introducing you to how to do some very simple programming. This short two minute video explains how to change the volume, contrast and brightness on one of our favorite panels.

If you don't like looking at me, most of these videos are just hands on demonstrations of FAQs we've already produced. Learn in your own way. If you want to read these instructions rather than watch them you can read each individual FAQ on changing your LYNX Touch's volume, contrast  and brightness .

Here we thought the LYNX Touch was just the star of the security world. Now, it looks like the L5100 LYNX Touch is branching out to show biz too!

After dominating the security industry with it's ease of use and simple installation, the LYNX Touch is looking for new ways to impress. Starting this weekend, the LYNX Touch will be the star of the show on PBS' Hometime. Hometime is hosted by Dean Johnson and with almost 700 episodes and 25 years on the air, it is one of the longest running home improvement shows on television. The show helps do-it-yourselfers improve their homes and this weekend a LYNX Touch installation in a log cabin will be featured.

The installation will include various wireless sensors that are compatible with the LYNX Touch, such as the popular 5816 wireless door and window sensor as well as the wireless security cameras that are powered by Honeywell's AlarmNet division.

They will also go over how no LYNX Touch installation is complete until you add the amazing Total Connect service that provides access to your LYNX Touch from any computer or smartphone app.

We invite you to check out the Hometime episode and see how the LYNX Touch does in front of the bright lights of the TV cameras. Local showtimes may vary based on where you live so check Hometime's website for schedules.