Why Does My Lyric Gateway Switch from Arm Away to Arm Stay Mode?

There is a silent, and sometimes not so silent, battle being waged between alarm manufacturers and dealers, and the authorities who respond when an alarm goes off. One thing everyone agrees on, is that false alarms should be avoided whenever possible. To this end, manufacturers equip alarm panels with clever features to help avoid false alarms, and “Auto Stay Arming” is one of these features.

To understand Auto Stay, you must first understand the difference between Away arming, and Stay arming. When you arm Away, you’re telling your alarm panel that you plan to leave, which instructs the panel to arm every “controlled” zone not manually bypassed. A “controlled” zone is a zone that does not provide a 24 hour alarm response. Burglary zones are “controlled” zones, meaning the system has to be armed in order for one of these to cause an alarm. Fire, Carbon Monoxide, and Panic are examples of “non-controlled” zones, because they will always provide an alarm response, regardless of the armed status of the panel. So, in summary, when you arm your system Away, you’re saying that all burglary zones, other than any zone you may have manually bypassed, should be armed, and that you want to provide both an Exit Delay, and an Entry Delay for zones programmed to observe a delay.

When you arm Stay, you’re telling the system that you plan to Stay inside. For this reason, any zone programmed as an Interior zone type, such as motion detectors, some interior doors, etc., will automatically be bypassed by the system, so that you can walk freely inside the residence, without worrying about setting off the system yourself. Entry/Exit, and Perimeter zones, usually doors and windows, will be armed. So, in summary, arming Stay tells the system to automatically bypass any zone programmed as Interior, and will provide both an Exit Delay, and an Entry Delay for zones programmed to observe delay.

Auto Stay arming is a false alarm reduction feature, and is enabled by default in the Lyric Gateway. It is a programmable option, though, so it can be disabled by the alarm dealer. The logic for Auto Stay arming is this: If you arm the system Away, but within the amount of time provided for Exit Delay, the system doesn’t see you open and close an Entry/Exit door, the system assumes you did not leave the premises, and that you must have made a mistake in arming, that you intended to arm Stay. It will give you the full exit delay time, but at the end of the count down, it will switch from Away, to Stay automatically. To keep this from happening, you can either have your alarm dealer disable the feature, or, once you arm away, open and close a door that you would normally use to exit when the system is armed. The Gateway will see this, assume you left, and at the end of Exit Delay, the system will remain armed Away.