Why Does My Panel Show CO or Fire Trouble on an FF345 Zone?

Your FF345 may show a Fire or CO Sensor Trouble on your Honeywell System because it was manufactured in 09/2020 or later. FF345 units with a date code of 09/2020 and up are known to cause Sensor Trouble conditions on Honeywell Alarm Systems after a Fire Alarm or CO Alarm has been cleared.

Keep in mind that Encore FF345 devices with a date code of 09/2020 or later should still work fine with Honeywell Panels for the most part. The Sensor Trouble issue is more of an inconvenience. These FF345 units will still successfully enroll with Honeywell Systems and when properly programmed, trigger appropriate Fire Alarms and Carbon Monoxide (CO) Alarms upon detecting the distinct temporal-3 (T3) or temporal -4 (T4) sounds, respectively.

You can still safely and reliably use these sensors with your Honeywell System to monitor for fires and CO events. Just remember that the FF345 is not a standalone smoke detector or CO detector. The FF345 is a listening module that must be used in conjunction with a smoke detector that makes the T3 sound or with a carbon monoxide detector that makes the T4 sound. If your life-safety sensors are set up on a one-go-all-go network, then one FF345 sensor may be able to take over all your life-safety devices.

The FF345 is a 345 MHz listening module that is designed for use with 2GIG Systems, Honeywell Systems, and Qolsys IQ 4 systems that accept 345 MHz wireless signals. It can also be used with the 345 MHz Qolsys IQ Panel 2 Plus. However, it was discovered that FF345 units with a date code of 01/2020 will not enroll with Honeywell Alarm Systems. These units will still enroll with 2GIG Systems, and it is only compatibility with Honeywell Panels that is affected.

It is unknown if FF345 units with the 01/2020 date code will work with the 345 MHz IQ2+, but it is believed that they may also fail to enroll with that system. Additionally, FF345 units with date codes ranging from 02/2020 to 08/2020 may also have the exact same issues, but this has been neither tested nor confirmed. FF345 units with date codes older than 01/2020 should work with all of these systems, without experiencing any issues or abnormalities. For more information on checking the date code on an FF345 unit, please refer to this helpful FAQ.

Starting with the 09/2020 batch of FF345 devices, a fix was made so that these units could once again be used with Honeywell Security Systems as intended. But further testing revealed that while these units with the 09/2020 date code will successfully enroll with the Honeywell Systems, they have one minor issue that has a small impact on performance.

When the FF345 device detects the T3 or T4 sound and causes an alarm on a Honeywell System, and that alarm is subsequently cleared by performing one (1) or two (2) disarm sequences, the user may notice that there is a sensor trouble condition on the system. This is the same type of trouble condition that can occur due to an activated sensor cover tamper or a loss of RF supervision for a sensor. The error code E380 may appear in the event log, and the user may receive a report from the central monitoring station stating that an E380 Sensor Trouble Condition has been reported.

This may be disturbing for users who do not know about the issue. Fortunately, the trouble condition often clears on its own after a little bit of time. But in some cases, a user may be required to perform an additional disarm on the system to get the trouble to clear. We have tested this on FF345 units from the 09/2020 batch. Units made later than 09/2020 are likely to have a similar problem, but again this has not been tested. Please note that the Sensor Trouble Condition is only known to appear on Honeywell Alarm Systems. Some of the Honeywell Alarm Systems that are compatible with the Encore FireFighter FF345 Smoke and CO Takeover Listening Module include the Honeywell Lyric, the Honeywell LYNX Touch Alarm Panels, and Honeywell VISTA Panels with added 345 MHz receivers. Also, the Honeywell Home PROA7 and PROA7PLUS and the Resideo PROA7C and PROA7PLUSC support the use of this module when the PROTAKEOVER is installed. The PROTAKEOVER should be set to use Honeywell legacy sensors, with the dial set to zero (0).