Connecting an iPhone to a Qolsys IQ Panel 2

Hi, DIYers. I'm Jorge from Alarm Grid. Today I'm going to be showing you guys how to connect your iPhone to your Qolsys IQ Panel 2. So basically to first start off is, the only way to get your iOS device or your iPhone to work with your IQ 2 remotely through an application is by using the Alarm.com platform. Now, what Alarm.com is, it's an interactive platform that you can only get through an alarm company. And what it allows you to do is basically interact with your alarm system all through either a website or through an app on your Android or iPhone. Today we'll be doing it on an iOS device. I don't have an iPhone. I do have a tablet, an iPad. But it's the same application. It'll be the same concepts. So I'll be showing you guys pretty much what the app can do, how to get access to the app, what you guys need to keep in mind when you guys are looking to connect the system to the Alarm.com platform. So Alarm.com platform basically acts as a secondary point of access so that you can actually control the system. Like I said, you can arm and disarm. You can set up notifications such as email, text message, and push notifications. You can control any Z-Wave devices such as ho-- lights, locks, thermostats, garage door controllers, switches, just a whole bunch of different array of different Z-Wave devices. Since the panel is compatible with Z-Wave Plus, it works with both Z-Wave Plus and Z-Wave devices as well. You can view Alarm.com video cameras through the Alarm.com application. You can integrate a whole bunch of different things. I know it works with Alexa as well. So you just got to enable the skills. So there's a lot of different things you could do with Alarm.com and many different integrations. And if you guys ever want to find out more, you can feel free to contact us. Now, let's go ahead and talk about getting your iPhone set up on the Alarm.com platform. So like I said, the only way to get Alarm.com is through an actual alarm company. Now, the thing with Alarm.com is, even though the IQ 2 has Wi-Fi and cellular built in-- it's LTE-- Alarm.com only has cellular price plans. So when you sign up for a monitoring company, you're going to be paying cellular. You're going to be paying for the cellular-based plan even though your system can use just Wi-Fi as well. So a lot of you, oh, well, why can't I just sign up for a Wi-Fi plan? It's because Alarm.com is really the only service that you can use on the IQ 2. And Alarm.com has only cellular-based plans. So whenever you guys are getting the IQ 2, just keep that in mind, that the monitoring plans-- make sure you're aware of the price of the cellular monitoring plans before you go with the system, as sometimes that's not what some people may want to go with. Obviously it's recommended. Cellular is always going to be more secure. Wi-Fi can go down. The power in your house can be cut. The power-- there could be a power outage in the house. If all that happens and your Wi-Fi is gone, well, luckily through this system and Alarm.com, it's making you use cellular. So your system is always going to be working, especially because the system also has a built-in backup battery. All right, so now let's go ahead and get into the actual Alarm.com application. So once you get your IQ 2 or your IQ 2 Plus, once you have it installed, programmed, everything's ready to go, the next step to do is to get it actually activated or monitored with an alarm company so you can get it up and running on the Alarm.com application. Once you sign up for the correct monitoring plan that gives you access to the application, you now should get your welcome emails from the alarm company that created your account, which we do as well, by the way, for those of you interested in getting monitored. You should-- the alarm company will send you your welcome emails for the Alarm.com. And the Alarm.com wizard will basically walk you through the whole setup. Now, let me get my tablet here ready. Once you have your Alarm.com welcome emails and you've basically gone through the whole wizard, you'll be taken to your home screen for the Alarm.com app. Now, on this home screen, yours will probably start off a little more blank. I have a couple of highlights. It just shows me what I've missed throughout the day. I have my scenes at the top, security system, my status, images. The panel has a built-in image sensor at the very top, also something you can enable whenever somebody disarms and sends you a picture. I have Alarm.com video cameras. It shows my weather. And I used to have some lights on here as well. So the lights would all come up basically. The home screen can be edited to show you whatever it is you want. In the settings, you can add whatever you want to the home screen. So let's say you didn't want weather. You didn't want your video or images. You can take all those out. And if you just wanted access to your system and your Z-Wave devices, you can have that on the home screen. Now, on the left-hand side by the navigation bar, you're going to see my scenes. You're going to see the status of my security system-- arm, disarm, arm stay. I can arm the system away. I can do silent arming. I can do no entry delay. That means-- no entry delay means if you walk in through the front door, the alarm goes off right away. Normally front doors have that entry/exit 30-second delay period that gives you time to go disarm. But if you do no entry delay, you're cutting that out. And you're basically turning every sensor into a perimeter sensor. All right, let's cancel. I can go to my images. These are all the images that the system has taken. My Z-Wave locks-- so you can also have Z-Wave locks on here as well. So if you have front door, back door locks, this is very nice. Let's say you're at work and you need to let someone into your house. You can unlock the system, unlock the house, let them in, peek in through your cameras, make sure they're doing whatever needs to be done at the house. Then once they leave, you can rearm the system and lock the door again. It's a pretty-- really great feature. We have the cameras here, some Alarm.com cameras. You can also through the Alarm.com website-- not through the application, but through the website-- you can enable the alarm if you have the correct Alarm.com models, though, for the video cameras, you can enable them to stream to the actual IQ 2 Plus itself. Here I have my lights. I don't have any lights in here. But if I did, they would all show up here. I have my Thermostat tab. And now I have my Users tab. Here's where you can create user codes. And you can also manage different logins. So if you just want to create someone a user code, you create them a user code. If you want to go ahead and create a login, you can hit the little Plus sign. Well, this here, I'm creating a new user code-- really nice if you need to give someone access to your system and you're out of town and you want them to have their own code. You don't want to have to disarm every single time. You can actually do that here. Let's see what else we have. Login information-- yes, you can change your password, security questions, change your email. You can link another Alarm.com account that you may have. So let's say you have another location and you're also using Alarm.com with it, but you want to view both accounts on one. You would go to Link a System. And then from there, you would add in the sign-in information for the other account that you have. So that's pretty neat as well. And then in your settings, you can enable your notifications, push notifications. You can, like I said, edit the home screen. You can set touch ID, or face ID for those of you who have the new iOS iPhones. You can set up some Siri shortcuts. So as you see, the whole system itself can be controlled by the alarm system. I'll go ahead and I'll do an arm state just to show you guys what it looks like. Remote arm state. The command goes through. It goes through to the panel [INAUDIBLE].. And then if I want to disarm it, Disarm. Remote disarm. And the system is now disarmed. Now, the signal here is pretty quick. My iPad is connected to the Wi-Fi. So the signal is being sent through Wi-Fi. I know some of you guys, depending on the areas you're in or depending on the cellular reception you guys have, may have some lag sometimes between the transmission of Alarm.com to the panel. That's normal. Let's say if you have one bar reception, you're also not going to able to browse the internet as fast as you could if you had five bars of reception, yeah, so just something to keep in mind when you're using the application. Like I said right now, if I was away from the house, if I was at work, in a different state, different country traveling, vacation, whatever it is, when you're not at home, the Alarm.com app, you have to have that downloaded on your iPhone. You have to have an active service with Alarm.com, which you get through an alarm company. And then you'll get your welcome emails for Alarm.com. If you guys have any other questions about how to get the Alarm.com service on your iPhone, you guys have any questions about the monitoring, getting your system set up, please email us at support@alarmgrid.com. If you found the video helpful, make sure you hit Like underneath. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. And hit that little bell icon so whenever we upload new content, you guys get notified. I'm Jorge, and I'll see you guys next time.