2GIG Easy Updater Tool: Updating

Hey, DIYers. Jorge here from AlarmGrid. Today, I'm going to show you guys how to update the 2GIG Easy Updater tool, so that you guys can bring your GC2 or your GC2e up to the latest firmware, so that it works with the new alarm.com LTE communicators. Now, typically, you're going to be doing this on older 2GIG GC2 systems. So a lot of you guys out there that are transitioning from another company or that have an old 3G, 4G or CDMA cellular communicator are coming to that point now where it's going to stop working pretty soon. So the companies are saying that you need to either get a new panel, or you need to find a way to get LTE to the system. This is where the updates come in handy on the GC2 security system. Now, there's two ways to update the firmware on a GC2 system. You've got the updater cable, which is a little difficult. We have a video on that and an FAQ that shows you how to do it. Or you can use the 2GIG Easy Updater tool, which is this little device right here. You simply buy this online. You plug it into the security system while it's powered down. You power it on. You hit the Start button. And then boom, your system will start the firmware update. And it should end up on the latest update. Now, if you guys are doing the normal GC2, the latest update for that is 1.19.3.1. And sometimes when you guys buy this tool, it actually comes from the factory with an old firmware update. So there are times, which is what this video is going to cover, that you may have to even update the updater tool. Yeah. So in today's video, I'm going to show you guys how to update the updater tool. And there's going to be a second video that will show you how to use the updater tool to update your GC2 or your GC2e system. So before I actually plug this in to update, this one, I've actually verified-- and I'll show you guys later on in the video-- that it is on an old firmware. And again, this happens once in a blue moon. But if it does happen to you, this is where this video will come in handy. And a couple of tips. One, if you guys are going to update the tool, you do need a Windows computer. The software to update this needs to be run from Windows. So if you guys have a Mac, you are going to need some kind of virtual desktop or remote desktop to access a Windows PC, so that you can run this on the Windows computer. Today, I'm actually going to be running on a Mac using a remote desktop. So I'll be showing you guys from a Mac but from a Windows how to update the tool. And let's go ahead and get over to the computer now. All right, DIYers, so now that I'm at the computer, I'm going to have my updater tool here. As you see, there's no power to it. If you look at the little side port here, there is going to be a little USB port that you're going to be able to connect to it. These are the cables that typically come with Android phones or tablets. You need the ones that you can connect your phone from the computer. Or, yes, you need the cable that you can run from your computer to your Android phone or tablet that not only does power but that also transmits data. So if you guys have a USB/USBFTDI compatible cable, you're going to want to use one of those cables. If you guys only have the ones that are used for power, the update will not work. So you need to make sure you guys have one of these cables here. You're going to plug one end into here eventually, not right now. And what you can go ahead and start doing now is, if you do have one of these, plug it into the back of your computer. So I have that end plugged into the back of my computer for right now. I'm not doing anything with it at the moment. I'm just going to leave it here. And I'm going to show you guys now the on-screen instructions on how to get this updater tool updated. All right, so the first thing you're going to want to do, just so that it's easier for you guys to follow along, is to go ahead and open up the FAQ that's linked in the description. It'll say, How Do I Successfully Update The 2GIG Easy Updater Tool? The reason I'm doing this is, not only is it just going to be easy for you to follow along in the video, but there's going to be a separate link you will have to find to get the actual update file for the updater tool. So open up the link, the FAQ in the description, so that, that way, all you have to do is click the hypertext link. And it'll open up the page that will allow you to download the update. So once you're here, basically, the FAQ is just going over unpacking the device. Make sure you don't lose this 4-pin cable adapter right here. This will be what's needed to update any TS1 touchscreen keypads you may have that work with your GC2 system. If you guys lose that piece and do the update on your GC2, your TS1 keypads may stop working. They also need the firmware update. All right? So we're just going to go ahead and skip past the unpacking. Here is where you're going to click the second link, Download the New Firmware. So if I download the new firmware, there's a little hypertext link here that will open up a new tab. And this is where I'm going to download my new GC2 firmware. Now, on this page, you are going to see two download firmware buttons. The one that we want to download is the one for the updater tool. So that'll be this one right here, Download Current Firmware Update Updater Tool. When I click on this, it should now forward me over to a Dropbox link. Once the page fully loads up-- again, you want to make sure you're doing this on a Windows computer, all right? If you're doing this on a Mac, you will need to do a remote desktop or some sort of virtual desktop, so that you guys can run this through a Windows platform, all right? All of these files end in dot exe. So that is only run through Windows. It cannot be run on Mac. So once you have the Dropbox page fully loaded up, you're going to see this little download button right up here in the top right. You're going to hit Download. You're going to hit Direct Download. And at the bottom of that, it's asking us what we want to do with the file that we're downloading it. I'm just going to save it. All right, after it's done downloading from Dropbox and it's saved into your folders, what I'm going to do since it's actually a zip file, right there, it says dot zip, we're going to need to extract or unzip it. So we're going to hit Open Folder. This will take me to my Downloads. And as you see here, we have-- if you just want to check. The file we downloaded is just UPDV_Tool_Firmware, that whole name right there, that whole file name. You'll find it right here. All right? We just downloaded it today 6/25/2021 at 3:37 PM. So from here, it has a little zip icon. So we need to extract or unzip it. So we're going to right click, extract all. It's going to ask select the destination. Normally, it just puts it in the same downloads folder creates a new one. But just an unzipped folder in the downloads. So I'm just going to leave it there, just so it's easier to see. I'm going to hit extract. Almost completed. All right, so it actually opened it up for me right away. I'm just going to click out of this so you guys can see. So I have the zipped one right here. And then I have the unzipped one right here. See how it doesn't have that little zip icon? So now that we have this, I'm just going to click on it to open it up. Now, there's a couple of things. When you guys go to plug this in-- really quickly, I want to show you. If you guys don't have the drivers on your computer-- I actually downloaded the drivers beforehand. So you're not going to see the error on mine. But if you guys get this error-- if you scroll down here, this is just showing you all the steps that we did, which all we did was download, put it into our Downloads folder. We extracted it. But now here's where the interesting part is going to come into play. Now, let's say you guys do have your USB cable. And you know for sure this is the one that you use for your smartphones and tablets. And it not only transmits power, but it transmits data as well. You know for sure that this is the cable. When you guys plug it in and if you guys get this issue right here, No COM Ports found with the FTDI support, it could be that you guys don't have the correct drivers downloaded. So what I recommend you guys do, if this is the first time you guys are doing this and you guys haven't done these steps before, run this little file right here, CDM2128_Setup.exe. I'm just going to right click on it. I'm going to Run as Administrator. This will give me the drivers that I need, so that this cable right here can actually communicate to this device, to the 2GIG Easy Updater tool. So if you guys are following along, just run that as an administrator. It'll pull up this little wizard right here. I'm just going to hit Extract. It's going to start extracting them. Like I said, I ran these before the video because I was doing it as well to make sure everything functioned correctly. It's going to take me to this wizard here, the Device Driver Installation Wizard. I'm just going to hit Next. If you want to scroll through the license agreement, you're more than welcome to do that. I'm going to hit Accept the agreement. And I'm just going to move on to the next. So now my driver packages are ready to use. Ready to use, ready to use. I'm just going to hit Finish. So now I shouldn't have any issues with my updater tool and the device finding it. So what I'm going to do, as soon as I plug this in, it will give power. Remember this cable gives power and transmits data. So this will give power to the updater tool. And the updater tool will start showing me sequence of numbers. Those are the firmware updates that this one has. And you will see, like I told you earlier in the video, this one has an old firmware update on it. So let's go ahead and plug it in for right now. So this one, you will see here it says 1.18, but the first one. So it's going to scroll, that's GC2e. This is the 1.13, that's going to be the GC2. And then that's 1.18, the second firmware update you see after the EN_US. That's for the 2GIG GC2e. All right? So you have the GC2 firmware and then the GC2e. So as you see, like I told you guys earlier, it's 1.19.3.1 is the latest update. This one is on 1.13. So we definitely need to do a firmware update on this. I'm just going to unplug it real fast because since I'm doing this on a Mac, when I plugged it in, I got a pop up if I want to connect this to my Mac or Windows. And that pop up disappeared. So I'm going to plug it in one more time. And you guys need to make sure that when you plug it in, if you're doing this on a Mac with a remote desktop, that you allow the device to connect to your Windows. Plugged it in. I'm going to go over to my computer here. It's going to say Choose where you would like to connect Future Devices. I'm just going to connect it to the Windows because that's what I need. Now, that it's connected to my Windows and I've installed my drivers, I can now do this update, the UPDV. Tool firmware version 1.22. And if you see here in the description when I hover over it, it will say 1.22 is the version for the GC2e. And then 1.19.3.1 is the version for the normal GC2. I'm going to right click on this. I'm going to Run as administrator. And then hopefully, since I have the drivers installed, you should get this pop up. It'll say 2gigtechnologies Firmware Update is Needed, and it'll start doing the firmware update on the tool. And you just need to wait a couple of minutes. Let it do its magic. And when it's done, it should say completed. And the tool will show you done as well. So like I said, it'll take a couple of minutes. So let it go ahead and do its update. All right, as you see here, the updater tool now is saying done. All right, so now that that's done, if you go to your computer and look at the screen, it should also say update successful. You can now go ahead and hit Quit. You can exit out of everything if you like. And you can go ahead and grab your tool, grab the USB cable, unplug it. It will power down. This device is now on firmware version 1.19.3.1. And you can use it to update your GC2, your GC2e, and all of your TS1 touchscreen keypads. Let's go ahead and get back over to the video room. All right, guys, now that we're done at the computer doing the update on the 2GIG Easy Updater tool, now all we got to do is use this to update our GC2 or GC2e or the TS1 keypads, which we will have a video for that as well. So make sure you guys keep your eyes out for that. If you guys have any questions about updating the tool, if you guys weren't able to get the files, anything whatsoever, please send us an email to support@alarmgrid.com. If you found the video helpful, make sure you hit like underneath. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. And hit the little bell icon, so whenever we upload new content, you guys get notified. I'm Jorge. And I'll see you guys next time.