Is Monitoring Required to Use Home Automation with the Interlogix Simon XTi-XTi-5

Hey, DIYers. I'm George from Alarm Grid. Today, we're going to be going over if monitoring is required in order to use home automation on the Simon XTi or the Simon XTi-5. The quick simple answer to that is yes, a cellular monitoring plan is required. Why? Because in order for the system to have any kind of Z-wave controller compatibility, it does need to have an alarm.com communicator. Now, the alarm.com communicators come in AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and I believe it's LTE and 3G as well. So these communicators that alarm.com has made for these panels actually come with a built-in Z-wave receiver that basically gives your panel compatibility with Z-wave wave devices. However, in order to use that Z-wave compatibility on the panel, the communicator needs to be activated. And the only way you can activate a cellular communicator is by getting a monitoring company to activate it for you, which requires you to at least sign up for a cellular monitoring plan with whatever company you do decide to go with. Alarm Grid does have a bunch of cellular plans which you can always choose from. So keep that in mind while you're doing more research on the Simon XTi. Now, just going off of that cellular communication on the Simon XTi and the XTi-5, so it does need to be monitored. And once you have it monitored, it's going to give you the capability to add and remove devices on the panel. Now, that's pretty much all you can do on the system itself. You can't create the rules and the scenes locally from the system. From what I've seen, it only allows you to add and remove devices. The actual scene and rule creation is going to be done through the alarm.com app. So if you guys do decide to get monitoring with whatever company you do decide to go with, when you get the app, just make sure that the company enables automation on your plan. And from there, you'll actually be able to use the app, either the app or the website, and you can create rules and scenes. That way, you can start setting up actions that your system does based on the time of the day or whatever triggers it. This is going to make life a lot easier for end users. Why? Because you can simply say, whenever you arm your system away, turn off all the lights and leave one light on, right? You don't have to go around, turn all the lights off, do everything manually. The system, if you have Z-wave lights and everything, the system will actually take care of that when you arm it away. So it's going to save you guys a lot on energy consumption. It's going to just make life completely easier for you if you guys do decide to get Z-wave devices and the system monitored. Another other cool thing you can do is when you have that ADC communicator integrated into your panel, not only can you control Z-wave devices, you can actually use the app or the website, alarm.com, to arm and disarm your system. You can set up email and text messaging notifications. You can look at the status of your sensors or your panel. So not only are you getting remote control of your Z-wave devices, you're also getting remote control of the system as a whole. So definitely something to look into if you guys are looking at getting automation on your Simon XTi, XTi-5, or even the XT, same thing. Now, adding that cellular communicator-- as long as you guys have connection, cellular connection on your phones, you can be anywhere in the world, and you can control any Z-wave devices you have on the system-- lights, locks, thermostats, garage door controllers. You can arm and disarm the system from anywhere in the world, as long as if you're using your cell phone, as long as you have cellular signal to your phone, or if you're using the website, as long as the computer, PC, tablet, whatever you're using is logged into the internet, a house connection, all right? Well, that is pretty much it. In a gist, you do need to have the cellular communication and active cellular communicator in your Simon panel, whether it's the XTi, XTi-5, or even the XT. And if you have that monitored by a company, just make sure that they enable automation for you, and you should be able to do all the scene and rule creations through the actual app. If you guys do have any questions at all whatsoever, feel free to email us at support@alarmgrid.com. If you guys found this video helpful, make sure that you hit Like underneath, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and enable the notifications so whenever we upload new content, you guys do get notified. Thank you, guys. I'm George. I'll see you guys next time.