2GIG Edge: Connect to WIFI

Hey DIYers, George here from Alarm Grid. Today, I'm going to be going over how to connect your 2GIG edge security system to your WiFi network. Now there are a couple of important reasons as to why you may want to connect the edge to the WiFi network. One of them is it acts as a communication path to the alarm.com servers. Now granted keep in mind the 2GIG system has the cellular LTE communicator built in either Horizon or AT&T, so whenever you're getting this system. You want to make sure you do your research, in your area to make sure you choose the correct cellular provider. Remember, it's not you guys that are signing up for a service contract with AT&T Horizon, the alarm company you guys choose, actually covers those cellular fees for you. So all you need to do is just make sure you have good cellular reception in the area for whichever version of the panel, you're going to get. Now, the 2GIG edge system, although it has WiFi in it, I want to make sure I make this very clear for everyone right from the start, it cannot be used as a WiFi-only based system. Per alarm.com requirements, you need to have the cellular communicator in the system activated, as that is what alarm.com requires. They do not have WiFi only based plans. Their plans are only cellular. So if you get the system and expect to sign up for a monitoring service with an alarm company that's based off of WiFi only communication, that will not work for this security system. You need to make sure-- if you're getting this, you know you have to pay for the cellular fees. You need to sign up for the service that's going to cover the cellular fees in the security system. Now, the benefits of having WiFi on the system are exponential. This system can connect to a 2.4 gigahertz or five gigahertz WiFi network. And when it's connected to a WiFi network, we have a video on some compatible keypads. And in that video, we touch base on the 2GIG Edge remote keypad. That actually pairs to this security system using a WiFi network. So if you guys have a huge area, whereas a normal keypads back in the day used to use RF frequency directly to the system, this actually pairs over the WiFi. And as long as you guys have the same WiFi network throughout the house, you can have a keypad on the other side, not within RF range, but as long as they're both connected to the same WiFi, you can actually pair it. Pairing them to the WiFi allows the keypads to emulate what this system is exactly showing. Now, let's say you guys don't have WiFi in the house. You wanted a secondary keypad. It actually has access point mode as well. Another way that the WiFi is used in the system, if you guys get alarm.com cameras, which also connect to WiFi or POE, as long as you guys have this connected to the WiFi network, you can enable streaming to the panel. So you need to have WiFi enabled on the system so that you can actually stream the cameras to the alarm system itself. I'm going to show you guys really fast how to connect the system to WiFi. You're going to need your installer code or your master code. Either one of those is fine. If you're DIY, it's very important you guys always try to get access to the installer code, as that's what you need to add in devices to your system. If you have a master code, that will work as well. So I'm going to go ahead and hit my gear icon on the bottom right from the main screen, the gear icon. You're going to enter here your master or installer code. For today's purpose, I'm just going to use my master code, because some of you may not have the installer code. You may only have the master, which is your arming and disarming code, typically. So I'm going to-- mine is defaulted to 1111. From here, it's one of the first few buttons on there, it says Network. When I click on Network, there's the access point that you can do in case you don't have WiFi, but you want a secondary keypad, you can enable that. So what we're going to do here is we're going to go into the wireless, because that's what we want to connect to. We want to connect to the wireless network, which would be our WiFi. After you hit Wireless, it's going to take you to the screen where it's going to basically search for any wireless networks in the area. You may get a couple. For instance, in my case, I have quite a few here. I want to go ahead and select my WiFi network. Once you select it, it should bring up the keypad for you to enter in your password. This is where you will go ahead and enter your WiFi password. Hit next, and then it should successfully connect, as long as you enter in the correct password. So after you enter in your code, you're going to hit next. It'll say connecting to the network. After it connects to the network, you should see it automatically pulls up all your information. If you hit the back arrow key real fast one time, you should have that green lock pad on your network. And the signal bars will be green as well, letting you know that, that is the network you're connected to. If you ever need to connect to a different network, you can scroll down. All of the grayed ones are the ones that you're not connected to. The green one, it even says connected right underneath the Alarm Grid. Once you have that connected to the WiFi, you can go ahead and back out to the main screen. Now, just because you have connected to the system to the WiFi network doesn't mean your system can just be activated on WiFi. Like I was saying in the beginning of the video, alarm.com does require the cellular in order to activate the system. So basically, what we're doing by enabling the WiFi network on the system is giving it a secondary path of communication. And in the event that WiFi ever fails, it disconnects, your power goes out, the system has a backup battery. It has a cellular communicator in there. As long as you have good cellular connection in the area, your system will continue to work and send out any alarm signals through its cellular path. So that is the great benefit of having a dual path system. All right, if you guys have any questions about pairing your 2GIG Edge to the WiFi network, please give us a call, send us an email to support@alarmgrid.com. If you found the video hopeful, 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 George, and I'll see you guys next time.