Honeywell LTE-XV

The Honeywell LTE-XV is the first AlarmNet ready Verizon LTE cellular communicator for the Honeywell VISTA series. Honeywell has offered AT&T cellular communications for wired control panels like the VISTA-20P for a long time. However they finally released the CDMA-X which was the first Verizon cellular communicator for VISTA panels not too long ago. Now the release of the LTE-XV shows that Honeywell is looking to expand their cellular equipment lineup with transmission speeds and network coverage in mind. Although AT&T has a reliable nationwide network, there are areas of the country that only get Verizon coverage and customers in these areas should be very excited about this product.

Long-Term Evolution or LTE radios operate on the latest 4G standards. In this case, the radio transmits signals using Verizon's HSPA+ / UMTS networks. If the HSPA+ ever fails to report a signal it will attempt report it using the SMS network. The Verizon LTE network is unmatched in terms of speeds and reliability. This means faster transmission times for alarm signals from your alarm system to a central station or an interactive app like Total Connect 2.0. It is not only speed and reliability that makes the LTE-XV a great choice for any VISTA panel owner. Looking bigger picture we have seen cellular carriers phase out older, slower networks like the 2G network for AT&T. Eventually Verizon will phase out its CDMA-1x network and AT&T will do the same with their respective 3G network. Installing the LTE-XV is positioning your security system for the future. It will give you peace and mind today but more importantly you will not have to worry about hardware replacement anytime soon. Set it and forget it type deal! We all love those.

The LTE-XV operates similar to other Honeywell X model cellular communicators like the CDMA-X and the GSMX4G in terms of power consumption and physical build. There is an included wiring harness clips into a port on the LTE-XV and has 4 pre-stripped wires on the other end. These 4 connections go the VISTA panel's keypad (ECP) bus and offers power and data connections. Red and black go to positive and negative power on terminals 5 and 4 respectively. Green and yellow go to data in and out on terminals 6 and 7. In peak usage the LTE-XV will draw up to 250mA. Make sure you add this to your total current draw calculation to avoid drawing more than the VISTA panel's max ECP output. For example, the VISTA-20P has a 600mA output so 350mA are left to power other devices like keypads, motions and glass break detectors. Siren sounders have their own bell output which do not need to be involved in the calculation.

There are 4 LED's: REG (green), TX/RX (yellow), FAULT (red), and SIGNAL (green). The registration LED will turn off as soon as it is registered with an AlarmNet dealer. Before registration it will remain solid on and it will slow blink in unison with TX/RX during registration process. The TX/RX stands for transmit and receive and should have a quick periodic blink to determine normal data transmissions from the AlarmNet server to the module. We call this the heart beat of the system. The fault light should always be off in normal use. When there is a solid red fault light it means the panel cannot contact the cellular network. In these situations we recommend physical relocation and/or installing a cellular antenna or amplifier. Keep in mind that after powering up it may take up to 15 minutes to acquire a solid signal. A slow red blink is an ECP fault. This generally can be isolated to a wiring issue on the ECP bus or an ECP device address conflict on the system. The signal LED is very important. When it is on you have enough signal to register and operate the system with AlarmNet. When blinking the signal is marginal but still communicating with the server. When there is no signal LED it means there is no signal at all. Relocation or installing an antenna/amp is the best route for this situation as well.

Note: This is the Verizon LTE version. The AT&T LTE version is available here.