Honeywell VISTA-20PSIA

The Honeywell VISTA-20PSIA is an alarm control panel that is functionally similar to the VISTA-20P, but has special programming that makes it compliant with the Security Industry Association’s (SIA) CP-01 standards. Alarm control panels that are compliant with SIA CP-01 standards are designed to reduce false alarms. A false alarm is any alarm that was triggered by a non-emergency event. Unfortunately, due to many alarm companies not properly educating their customers, nearly all alarms received by central stations are false alarms. Therefore, police departments are constantly sending officers out to these false alarms and countless hours are being wasted. Police departments are starting to view the alarm industry as more of a problem than a solution. Towns, cities and states have even begun to pass new ordinances that impose expensive fines on the alarm user when the police respond to a false alarm at their property. In some jurisdictions, the police won’t even show up to investigate an alarm unless the alarm user has a CP-01 compliant security system.

The Honeywell VISTA-20PSIA is a certified SIA CP-01 compliant alarm control panel that meets all SIA specifications for reducing false alarms. If your city or state has adopted CP-01 alarm system standards, you may be legally required to install an alarm control panel like the VISTA-20PSIA. Also, if you already have an alarm control panel installed and you have had problems with false alarms, you should consider upgrading to a SIA alarm control panel like the VISTA-20PSIA.

False alarm reduction starts with proper education for the alarm user. If a security system is operated by someone that knows exactly how the alarm control panel works, false alarms are much less likely. In fact, the majority of false alarms are triggered by someone that improperly armed or disarmed the security system. However, even with proper education, false alarms may still occur. Therefore, by opting for a SIA CP-01 alarm control panel like the VISTA-20PSIA and reading up on how to properly use your security system, you can help solve the false alarm problem. If the false alarm problem goes unchecked, police departments may eventually stop responding to any alarm dispatch called in by a central station. All security systems owners would be left with a system that can only make a loud noise or they would have to pay an extremely high monthly rate to have a professional guard service investigate each alarm before calling the real emergencies in to the police.

The Honeywell VISTA-20PSIA alarm control panel has the following programming settings which make it compliant with SIA CP-01 alarm control panel standards. In programming field *31, if the ‘Single Alarm Sounding per Zone’ option is set to ‘0’, the ‘Alarm Sounding per Zone’ will match the ‘Number of Reports in Armed Period’ in field *93 (1 for one report or 2 for two reports). In field *34, the ‘Exit Delay’ option must be set to a minimum of (45) seconds. In field *35 and *36, the ‘Entry Delay 1’ and Entry Delay 2’ options must be set to a minimum of (30) seconds. While the VISTA-20P has a *37 field for setting the ‘Audible Exit Warning’ option, the VISTA-20PSIA always has the option enabled and doesn’t even allow you to enter the *37 programming field. In field *39, the ‘Power Up in Previous State’ option must be set to ‘1’ so that the VISTA-20PSIA always powers up in the previous state. If your VISTA-20PSIA is hooked up to a phone line that uses call waiting, you must enter an applicable PABX access code in field *40 and you must disable the ‘Call Waiting’ option in field *91. In field *50, the ‘Burglarly Dial Delay’ option must be set to a minimum of (30) seconds. In field *59, the ‘Exit Error Alarm Report Code’ must always be enabled to comply with SIA CP-01 standards. In field *68, the ‘Cancel Report Code’ is enabled by default and should remain enabled. In Field *69, the ‘Recent Closing Report Code’ option is always enabled. In field *85, you must set the cross zone timer programming and assign the cross zone pairs in zone list 4 using the *81 ‘Zone List’ mode. In field *91, the ‘Exit Delay’ option should be enabled. Also, to fully comply with SIA CP-01, the VISTA-20PSIA will use fire alarm verification whenever a zone is programmed for a zone type 16. All of these features combined greatly reduce the chance of a false alarm being triggered by your Honeywell VISTA-20PSIA alarm control panel.