Does A 2GIG GC3 Require An Internet Connection?

hi DIY is join from alarm grid and today we're going to talk about whether or not the gc3 requires an internet connection for monitoring now the good news is that it doesn't we have a gc3 mounted right up here and on all gc3 systems to get them connected to alarm comm you actually have to add in a separate radio it's a standalone unit its proprietary it's all-in-one and it actually slips right into the side of the unit right here we've already installed one with that cellular module installed in the system you can actually use the system by itself as long as it has a cellular connection you can install it in any location monitor it the end users will be able to use LARM comm and you'll get all the benefits of a monitored system if you do have an internet connection on site the gc3 does have a built in Wi-Fi module also and you can connect it to the the local Wi-Fi with that with both the cellular and the Wi-Fi connection on the system it can use dual path communication with alarm comm what that means is that it's going to transmit the signals on both communication paths and when alarm comm receives the signals so it's going to discard one that it doesn't need and it will accept the one that came in first this is a great way to set up a redundant communication path on your system and it makes your system very secure when in an unmonitored setting another benefit that you'll get from the Wi-Fi module in the system is your alarm comm app is going to respond much faster as Wi-Fi is usually much faster than cellular and that's great when you're in your house or your home and you're looking to interact with automation devices as the commands that you send from your app are going to transmit very quickly to the system I have one of these installed in my house and with it connected to Wi-Fi usually the latency for a command is five to ten seconds most of the time it's less than that it's a very good system when used with that now the system does require the cellular module to get connected to alarm.com as the system itself doesn't have an alarm serial built into the system the system is made by 2gig and alarm comm is run by alarm comm so when you buy the cellular module or the system that's going to have a sticker on it with some information which will have the serial number that your alarm dealer will need to activate the system once it has that installed then you can get it activated on alarm.com now even if you don't want to use the cellular portion of the system and you just want it to monitor it over Wi-Fi you would still need the alarm.com module installed in the system to get it to work because there's no other way for the system to communicate with alarm comm and even in that setup you're likely still going to get charged for the full price of the plan including cellular really any monitored system that you have installed nowadays if you can manage it it should have a cellular communicator as the Wi-Fi and internet communication it works great and it's super fast it's wonderful for automation and alarm monitoring it's just that as you may well know Wi-Fi and Internet it can go up and down the service level isn't really consistent and there's lots of things that can happen to it if you do have a monitored system and you want to make sure that your cellular or that your communication is getting to alarm comm and a central station then having a dual path setup with the backup path as the cellular communication will give you a much more reliable alarm system in your house there's also one more thing you have available on the gc3 this system actually has a built-in access point which you can use to connect it's keypads directly to the system the keypads can also connect to the system over a Wi-Fi network so you can do that too now the keypads I'm talking about are the sp1 and the sp2 they're wireless touchscreen keypads that are compatible with the gc3 and they have Wi-Fi modules inside of them you can connect them on to the Wi-Fi network and then they can join with the gc3 over that but if you're in a situation where there isn't any Wi-Fi you can actually use the access point mode on the gc3 connect the keypads directly to the system and then the system can still work on cellular to communicate out so it's a nice extra feature that's available to you and it's a it's it's great to use in a pinch in that situation that you don't have Wi-Fi some customers also like to connect the keypads directly to their gc3 system to keep it off with our wife or because they have some security or firewall setup that prevent communications from going back and forth it's definitely an option that's available on all the panels and I do encourage you to check it out in fact I'll show you where the menu is right now on the main screen if you click on system settings enter the installer code ours is 1 5 6 1 which is the default we're going to scroll down and click on network settings and I'm going to click on access point right here so as you can see we have the the access point enabled on the system it means that it's propagating that point you can enter the password right here you have the SSID which is the network name right in the top and then you have the IP address right in the bottom and all these can be edited right there it's a great feature to use on this menu you'll also find the wireless option if you do want to join it to a wireless network you just click right here this will show you the different networks when it scans we've already joined to this one but this is the menu that you would use to join a to a Wi-Fi network so that's pretty much whether or not the gc3 needs an active internet connection for alarm monitoring if you did enjoy the video feel free to give us a call eight at eight eight one eight seven seven two it you can also head over to the website alarmgrid comm or shoot us an email to support at alarm grid comm you did enjoy the video feel free to subscribe and if you want to be 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