Qolsys IQ Panel 2 Can be Self-Monitored

Hi, DIYers. I'm George from Alarm Grid. Today we're going to be going over whether or not a QOLSYS IQ Panel 2 or the IQ Panel 2 Plus can actually be self-monitored. The quick answer to that is yes. In order to self-monitor a QOLSYS IQ Panel 2, you will need an alarm.com interactive service. Now, if you're looking for alarm.com interactive service, we do offer that. It'll be one of our gold-level plans. The correct plan you want to look at if you're looking for just the basic self-monitoring for alarm.com will be the self gold plan. That will give you access to the alarm.com app. Now, what can you do with the alarm.com application? So this interactive platform allows you to arm and disarm your QOLSYS IQ Panel 2 or IQ Panel 2 Plus from your phone or computer. You just have to have the alarm.com account, which is what we, your alarm company, or whatever company you decide to go with, will provide you when they activate the system. Now, one important thing to know about alarm.com is that it only has cellular-based plans. So what does that mean for you IQ2 or IQ2 Plus users? Well, luckily for you, the panel already comes with a built-in either AT&T or Verizon cellular communicator. So you just have to make sure that the panel has cellular service or cellular signal. And when the company goes to activate you, they'll actually activate the cellular path. They'll also enable the Wi-Fi, you know, if that's something that you guys want. But basically, the company is the one that takes care of all the cellular fees. You yourself do not have to worry about contacting AT&T or Verizon. That's taken care of by your monitoring company when they activate the panel, which they're going to need the IMEI for that. The panel's IMEI is basically the unique identifier for the cellular chip in the panel, and that's what the company uses to activate the system. Now, when you guys do get the system activated, you'll be able to use the alarm.com platform, either the website or the application on your phone, to arm and disarm your system. The IQ2 has Z-Wave built in. So if you guys have any Z-Wave devices, like lights, locks, thermostats, garage door controllers, switches, plug-in modules, Z-Wave blinds, anything like that, it all-- if it's on the panel, it will be pushed up to the alarm.com cloud, where you can also access that from the app. You can create email and text message alerts. You can create users, log-in names for people, for other people who you want to have access to alarm.com. If you have an alarm.com video cameras, you can actually view them through the app. And through the app or website is actually where you will enable the cameras if they're compatible to stream to the panel themselves. So today, I just want to show you a quick demonstration of the-- what the alarm.com app can actually do for you. Now, one important thing-- if you guys are looking to self-monitor, what this means for you is that there is no central station that's being called to dispatch the police, the ambulance, the fire department. Self-monitoring is literally what it means-- self-monitoring. There's nobody else monitoring your system but yourself. So when you sign up for a self-monitoring plan with us, you're getting access to the application only, and it's your responsibility whenever the alarm goes off and you get the emails or text messages to then contact the authorities. Now, we normally recommend getting a central station monitor, as that's the most secure and most reliable way to protect your home. But we also understand that there are some people who it's just-- you know, the closest police department might be a good 40 minutes to an hour away, and you guys don't really see the point in getting central station monitoring. Either way, we always still recommend it. But if you guys want to do self-monitoring, basically what it means is just that-- you're monitoring it on your own with the application. There is a monthly subscription for that with us. It's no contract. So if you want to find out more, you can always contact us. Right now, I want to show you guys the application. So let me get my iPad ready here. So when you guys get your account signed up for the monitoring plan and you get activated, you'll be sent a couple of welcome emails from alarm.com. They're going to ask you to set up your password and usernames and specific settings. It's kind of like a quick wizard setup. After you do all of that, you can then log into the app or to the website, whichever one you plan on using. So mine automatically is already logged in, so it's going to open up the application. It's going to go directly into my account. My alarm.com right now is linked to my IQ2 panel right here on the wall. As you see, it says system is disarmed, which is exactly what you see matching right there on the screen. If I click on the system, I can go ahead and arm away, arm stay. I can do silent arming so you don't hear the panel beeping if you do an arm away. You could do no entry delay, which means that will take off pretty much any entry delays whenever you guys come back. So whether you arm stay or arm way, normally when you open the front door, it'll give you 30, 60 seconds, depending on where you have it set to-- it will give you that much amount of time to go disarm the system. If you select no entry delay, as soon as you open up that front door, the alarm is going off. So it's just something to think about. But yeah, I can do an arm away. You can see it's pretty much instantaneously. Right now, my tablet is connected to Wi-Fi, so the command went through pretty fast. Same thing with the panel. There might be a little bit of lag if you guys have bad cellular reception. So again, just something to keep in mind. Speed will also vary depending on where you're arming it from. If you have bad reception, if your Wi-Fi is slow, if your cellular is slow, your speeds, just something to think about. I can disarm it. Alarm disarmed. I can-- if you see right underneath that little open link, it's actually letting me know that my front door is open. So it shows you your sensor activity. Down here, I have my videos. I have my thermostats. I'll have my weather. I have my lights. So everything is pretty much on the home screen, on the app. And then you can actually access everything else. If you want to individually go to devices, you can click on the left navigation sidebar. These are my scenes. This is my system. These are images. So the panel actually has a camera up here, and it can take images whenever you disarm. And it'll send them up to the cloud where you can access. I have my Z-Wave locks, which I don't have one learned in right now. So if you did have locks, you'd be able to control them from here. My cameras, my lights, my thermostats, my users. I can create different users, different logins for different people. If you need to give someone access to your system for a day, you can create a user code for them for the day. You can go to your login information, and then you can go to your settings and configuring your notifications or touch ID, face ID for those of you who have iPhones or those other smartphones that do that. So there's a lot of things that you can do with the tablet and the IQ2 plus with just self-monitoring. And then obviously, if you want to add central station monitoring to it as well, we also have those plans. So if you guys have any other questions on the IQ2 Plus or the IQ2 on how to get it monitored, how to get the alarm.com platform with a system, feel free to send us an email to support@alarmgrid.com. If you found the video helpful, make sure you hit Like underneath, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and hit that little bell icon so whenever we upload new content, you guys get notified. I'm George, and I'll see you guys next time.