Duress Code Function on the 2GIG GC2e

Hi DIYers. This is Michael from Alarm Grid. And today, I'm going to be talking about duress code function on a 2GIG GC2e security system. So the duress code is a code that you would use if you're in trouble. The classic example is if you're in a hostage situation. Someone is holding you up, and they're demanding that you disarm your system. Or if you just need to discreetly trigger a silent help on your system, sending an alert to the central station, then this is what you will use. So just to be clear, how it works, it really is only useful if you have your 2GIG GC2e monitored. And by monitored, I mean specifically for central station monitoring. It's not very useful if you're just self-monitored with access to alarm.com but no central station service. Because what this is doing, it's sending a signal directly to the central station. So the central station sees the signal come through, and they know to send help immediately. You've manually triggered this duress code, this duress function, and they're going to send help right away. They're not going to contact you first. They're going to send help. Nothing is going to appear on the alarm.com app or website. You're not going to get a text notification about this. You're not going to get an email notification about this. This Is just a quick and dirty silent call for help. So that's when you'll be using this. So the first thing I want to show you is how you set up the duress code. Right now, we do not have the duress code set up on the system. It's actually hardwire-- hard coded-- hard coded to user slot number 8. So if you go into the user screen-- which I'm going to do that now-- you'll see that slot 8 is for the duress code. So we're going to choose-- we're at the main screen of our 2GIG GC2e system here. We're going through Security. Then we're going to choose Menu. Then we're going to choose Toolbox. And then we can enter in our master code. I think you can also do your installer code here, actually. I'll do our installer code just to be sure, but 1561. And yeah, we get to User Management right there. That's where we're going to go. I'm just curious. If I do Tool Box and then I enter in my master code, 1111-- that's the default-- we also get to User Management. So either way, we can get to User Management. We did that using our master code, which ours is at default 1111. But just to show you that you can also get in there with your installer code, 1561. That's the default installer code. And you can get into User Management. So really, you can use either code for this. So we're in the User Management screen. And what we can do is we can scroll down to user slot 8. You see it says Duress User. It skips 7, and the 8's missing. And 9 is right there, but we don't have 8. . So 7-8-9, but we don't have the 8. So seven didn't eat nine. [LAUGHS] So we're at the Duress Code screen, which is user slot 8. But it's not there. There's no slot 8. It's just the Duress User. So that's hard coded to slot 8. So it gives you some instructions here, so that way you're not accidentally setting this up. So you're not setting up code 8 and accidentally thinking that this is a normal code. It clearly tells you right here that you're actually setting up your duress user. So it says here-- I'll read it out-- "When a duress user arms or disarms the system, a silent alarm is triggered and transmitted to the central station." So if you do want to proceed with creating the user code-- the duress code-- not a user code, dress code-- then you'll Create Duress User down here in the bottom right. And now we're going to choose our duress code. Ours is set to be four digits. You can also adjust codes to be six digits. That's a different setting on the panel. But we'll focus on a four-digit code today. And because it's slot 8, we'll make it 8888. That will be our duress code. So we'll choose OK. And then it's going to ask us to confirm that code, and we'll do 8888, and we'll press OK. And it says "Duress user successfully enabled." We have enabled the duress user just like that. We'll choose OK. And we don't have many options here. There's not really a scheduling that we can do. We can delete the code if we don't want to have a duress code. And remember, setting this up is completely optional. If you don't want to have a duress code on your system, you're afraid that you might accidentally trigger it for whatever reason, you don't have to do this. This is totally optional. But you also have the option to change the PIN or the code, whatever you want to call it. But we'll back out. We have ours set up. And now I want to show you a little bit about how you can use this. So we'll go to the main screen there by pressing this button on the front. So one way that we can trigger the code, if we're just at the main screen of the 2GIG GC2e, we can press the 2GIG logo in the bottom right corner. And this is often how we would enter into programming. If we were to enter our installer code here-- I'm just showing you for demonstration-- if we were to do 1561, then we can get into a System Configuration and various settings. So that's normally what you do here. You probably see this in other videos all the time. Click the 2GIG logo in the bottom right and access the menus. But what you can also do-- if I were to enter in our duress code, 8888-- System disarmed. You see we just got that message, "System disarmed." And it doesn't show anything on the system, but it actually sent out a silent alert to the central station for help. So if I press this and I were to do a code that didn't work-- let's try 0000, which isn't set up-- you'll get the "Invalid Code." So if I had entered that 8888 code before I had set it up as duress user, nothing would have happened. Well, I shouldn't say nothing would have happened. I would have gotten this Incorrect Code enter screen. But instead, it does give us that different response when I do enter the duress code. So just to show you again, 8888. System disarmed. Just says, "System disarmed." And so that's what we get there. Now, another option that you might using the duress code at is if you're disarming the system. And someone maybe came up and surprised you, and they're holding you hostage, and they're demanding that you disarm your system. Well, you can enter your duress code to discreetly call for help. So let's try arming our system. Let's try arming stay. Arming stay. You see we've armed stay. So let's try disarming. And let's try disarming with our-- let's try disarming with our master code, do 1111. System Disarmed. Ready to arm. And that's how it responds when you do a normal disarm like that with a valid code. Now let's try doing the same thing but with our duress code. Actually, first I'll show you what happens if you do an incorrect code, and then you'll see that it doesn't allow me to disarm. And then I'll show you when I enter the duress code. So let's try-- we'll arm, and we'll arm stay. Arming stay. And let's click Disarm. And let's try an invalid code. Let's try 0000. And you see it gives us the message, "An invalid code was entered." We have to try again. So if we want to disarm, let's see what happens if we enter in our duress code, 8888. System disarmed. Ready to arm. You see, it did disarm, and it does say ready to arm, but what really happened is it secretly sent out a signal to the central station to let them know that we need help. And because this is manually triggered, it's a duress code coming in, they're most likely not going to contact you first. They're just going to send help right away. This is something you triggered. You need help right away. So that's how you can use the duress code on the 2GIG GC3e. It's user slot 8. It's hard coded to that slot. You can go into the User Management screen, set it up, configure a code that you can remember in an emergency situation to request help. So if you have any questions about the 2GIG GC2e, about duress codes or alarm monitoring services, send an email to support@alarmgrid.com. If you found this video helpful, make sure to give it a thumbs up below to like the video. And remember to subscribe to our channel for updates on future videos. We hope you enjoyed the video. Thank you.