Honeywell 7847i: Communicator Review

[MUSIC PLAYING] So now that we have a control panel that can do Total Connect 2.0 the next thing we need to do is an alarm communicator because you cannot get Total Connect 2.0 service using a phone line connection only so even if you have a [? prong chip ?] that supports auto connect and you still are one of the few that has a phone line connected to your system, you're going to have to add one more device. These are the four flavors of alarm communicators offered by Honeywell that allows you to do Total Connect service. We have an internet-only communicator which is called the 7847I, this is the lightest weight communicator because it doesn't have a battery back up. It gets its power from the control panel. It's got an ethernet connection right on the board. It is not a Wi-Fi communicator so you would need to route an ethernet cable from your router to this unit and then, this unit wires into the control panel. We have had people that can't get a router cable to the panel location, use a wireless gaming adapter or a power over ethernet device, something that can bridge that internet connection without a full wired cable. However, you have to understand the implications of doing that. If you've got a device that you're using to rely on for the internet connection and that's powered from an outlet, if you lose power to that device, you've probably lost your communication. Which is also, an important thing to note for any internet-only enabled system. When you go with internet monitoring, the service is less because there's no cellular data charges. It's using your internet so you're only paying for the access to the central station service and/or the Total Connect service. There's no SIM card data charges involved. But, again, if you've got any problem with the internet in the home, whether it's a power outage that knocked out your internet router, modem, power over ethernet device, anything that is in the home powered that needs power for your internet connection, if there's no battery backup on those devices, your system will still be powered on, but your internet connection is down. And the problem with that is, your central station may not know your down for up to 24 hours so that's the reason that AlarmNet also makes a cellular communicator.