Why Am I Unable to Bypass Certain Sensors or Zones?

There are many possible reasons why you cannot bypass certain sensors or zones. The most likely cause is that you are trying to bypass a sensor with a Response Type that cannot be bypassed. This is typically the case for most 24-Hour Zones and for a Temperature Zone for a Z-Wave Thermostat.

Bypassing a sensor means that the associated zone will be inactive for that arming session. In other words, the sensor will not be able to trigger a response from the system. For example, if you bypass a door and window sensor, then nothing will happen if you open up that door or window while the system is armed. This is different from deleting the sensor entirely, as its zone settings will still be stored inside of programming. The next time you go to arm your system without bypassing any sensors, the zone will be active as usual.

However, there are some zones that you would never want to bypass under any circumstance. This usually includes life-safety sensors. For example, you would never want to bypass a smoke detector or a carbon monoxide detector. If you had one of these sensors disabled, then it would present a life-threatening risk if an emergency were to occur. As a result, most manufacturers make it impossible to bypass these zones.

Another example of a zone that you cannot bypass would be a system zone that isn't really associated with a system sensor, but rather some other function. An example would be the Temperature Zones for Z-Wave Thermostats on a Lyric Controller. These zones are used to trigger a system response if the temperature falls outside a specified range. These zones cannot be bypassed, as they are more of a system function than being associated with a sensor.

Lastly, there are some other less common reasons why you may not be able to bypass a sensor. One is that the zone was programmed to prevent bypassing. Doing this is not recommended, buy some users may program their systems in this manner if they want to be absolutely sure that nobody can bypass a particular sensor. You may also be unable to bypass from an interactive monitoring platform like Total Connect 2.0 or Alarm.com if you are not an admin on the account and there are restrictions placed on your login.