Qolsys IQ Panel 4: How To Flash Upgrade

[AUDIO LOGO] Hey, DIYers! Dylan here with Alarm Grid. Today, we're going to review, "Is the IQ Panel 4 Flash Upgradeable?" So, for a short answer, yes. There are a few ways to actually get that done. You can get it downloaded directly from your alarm company. They can push that through alarm.com or you can request it through the panel itself. And you can also do what's called the AP mode. So that is-- essentially, you have a download onto a device such as a computer, a tablet, or a phone. It will give you a QR code. And then you can use the panel to scan that code and download the upgrade. And there is also a Patch Tag option. So when alarm.com releases a Bulletin, which we will update on our website as well, you can enter in the Patch Tag name onto the panel and then download that way. So I'm going to show you how to access each of these. We're only going to, obviously, do one of the options so we don't redownload the same update over and over. But I'll show you how to access all of these and then we'll just make sure it updates on our panel. OK, so with the panel, when you want to flash-upgrade the firmware for this, the most important thing, if it is possible and available, is to have the panel connected to Wi-Fi. So just real quick. To connect this to Wi-Fi, go to the top bar there. We'll go into SETTINGS. We're going to go into ADVANCED SETTINGS. We're going to enter in our installer code, but you can also use the master code for this as well. See Wi-Fi right there. And then just real quick-- 1234 is the master. You'll see the Wi-Fi option there as well. So since we're already here, you'll press Wi-Fi. That's going to load in all the networks available to you. We're already connected to ours. And then we do have other videos showing how to connect this. But it's fairly simple. You just press on this option here. We don't want to forget and then reconnect, but it's going to give you the option to enter in the password for the Wi-Fi. You'll press CONNECT. And then once that's successfully connected to Wi-Fi you're going to have that "Connected" showing under the network. So that is very important as the firmware updates, a majority of them are done over that Wi-Fi connection. So a few of these is easiest is when you have this connected to alarm.com, which is connected through an alarm company. If you contact your company and you request that they push that update, they can access the panel and then get that sent down. Very simple. You don't really have to do much with that. They can just push it directly through that Wi-Fi connection to the panel. Another option for this is if you want to request the update through the panel yourself. So instead of contacting the alarm company, you can go to the top gray bar here. You can go to Settings. We will go to Advanced Settings. We're going to enter in our installer code for this, so 1111. And then we will go to UPGRADE SOFTWARE. And then this is going to give us a few options here. So Upgrade Using Network, that is essentially going to send a signal to alarm.com, saying that you want that firmware downloaded to the panel. Upgrade Using Access Point. Show this real quick. So this isn't really used too often because when Qolsys releases new updates, they don't always make them available for this. But we do have the download for some of the firmware options available through our website. So there's a few ways that you can do the access point download. You can either download the file onto your smartphone or a tablet that's going to have a camera, and you can scan this QR code, or if you're using a computer, if you type in this information here, the SSID and the password, that's going to allow you to download from the computer onto the IQ4. So once you have that all set, either you've scanned the QR code or you've entered the information onto your computer, you'll press START. It's going to bring us to a second page here. We see we still have that Scan QR code option or enter the ID information, but we also have a new option here. Again, if we're using a smartphone or a tablet, we have a new QR code we can scan, or if you're using a computer, you're going to enter in this address into your URL search bar. So first, what we'll do is we are going to go ahead and show what it's like if we're going to scan using a smartphone. So I have my camera open here on my smartphone. I'm going to hold that over. It's going to have us join the network, which is the network for the Qolsys itself. And then after we're joined, we're going to press START. And then it gives us that same option here just in case, but we also have a new QR code. So I'm going to go over that, scan it. It's going to bring us to this web page, where we can access the three different types of files. When you're downloading from Dropbox, usually, it's going to download as a zip file. So you would choose Select File there. And if you have the zip file downloaded, it's going to show you right here. You can press on it and they'll upload to the Qolsys panel itself. And then now I'm going to show how to access that through your computer here. OK, so we are connected to the Qolsys panel. We are on the URL address that was given on the Qolsys panel itself. And we've downloaded the file from our Dropbox page. Now that file is not available through our general download link, as these do need to be password-protected so Qolsys has requested we not share these openly. But if you are needing this, feel free to contact us and we can get this sent out to you. So what we'll do now is we will go to, first, release.text file. Choose File. And go into our download. Release that text. Open that. We'll go to Upload ZIP file. We're going to select the zip file there. Open that. And then we'll do Upload Signature File. So we're going to go back in here, Signature, open. We have all three loaded now. OK, Qolsys panel is ready. Everything is connected properly. So I have all the files uploaded here. I'm going to do Send Files. File transfer in progress. Please wait. And on your Qolsys panel itself, that's going to show "Receiving required files. Please wait." And then you just need to sit here, let it do its thing. And now we are likely going to get a kind of an error message here since we're already up to date with Qolsys panel. So once it gets these files, we're going to get an error here, basically, just saying our panels are up to date, so it's not really much else we need to do for that. But if you're not on the latest version, which is 4.4.2, and you have this download file, this is how you can send it over to the panel using the AP mode. Another option here is PATCH TAG. So PATCH TAG, when a new update is available, there is a service bulletin. Again, this is also on our website. You can access it there. And essentially, what it is, is it's going to show you a name for the Patch Tag. So for example, a recent one is IQ Panel 4.4.2. So you would type that in here, you'd press OK, and then it's going to use that patch tag name. It's going to search for it. And then it will download it to the actual panel. So the Patch Tag option, because it's searching through alarm.com and the update using network option, both of these require that Wi-Fi connection. If you don't have Wi-Fi available, that's when you'll use the access point option. Just again, you won't always have the latest version of the firmware available right away. But as that does become more common, or if a newer version is released, that will be updated. So you don't have to worry if you don't have Wi-Fi. You still get those options through here. So what we'll do is we will do the Upgrade Using Network. And because, actually, I pressed that earlier, it looks like it's already running. All right, so that is running in the back. So what we'll do is we are going to keep the panel. Power it on. We're going to keep it connected to our Wi-Fi. And essentially, we're just going to wait for that to go through. So with that update, once that is fully updated onto the panel, we're going to get a pop-up on the screen here. It's going to say that the update has completed. And then you can press OK. It's going to fully download to the panel. And then sometimes it will reboot the panel as well. So we're just going to wait here for that to download. And then once we get that pop-up, we will cut back to our panel here. OK, so we were waiting for a bit. We weren't getting the message that we were hoping for. So I actually went back. I pressed on Upgrade Through the Network again. And it does show that now the update is downloading. So we're going to wait for this to complete. When this completes, we're going to get a message asking us to restart the panel so that can fully download onto the panel. And then after that, we're going to check the firmware. Currently, we are on firmware 4.3. I will show how to check the firmware once this is completed as well. And then that's going to be a higher firmware version. We're currently downloading 4.4.1. So we'll just give this a little bit of time to fully download. We will come back when the restart option shows. And then after that, we will show how to confirm the firmware on the panel itself. OK, so we are back. We are almost at the 100% here. I just want to show what happens once it reaches that 100% There's a few more seconds. There we go. OK, perfect. So now it's verifying. There we go. All right, so it says "System is ready to be updated. Panel will power cycle to complete the installation. This may take a couple of minutes." so I'm going to press OK. It's going to power off. It's going to go through a reboot process here. So during this time, we're not going to touch anything with the panel. We're just going to let it go through what it needs to do. OK, it's installing the system update. OK, we're back. So it can take a few minutes to complete that install. But we let that bar go through. And again, very important, while it's doing that process, do not touch anything with the panel. Do not unplug the power supply or anything like that because you can disrupt the update and possibly corrupt the operating system on the panel. So we're going to wait for this to complete the reboot process. OK, we have our Qolsys screen loading back up. All right, we are back on the home screen. We're going to let it continue to boot before we go back into the menu option. All right, OK, so we are fully booted back up. The software seemed to have installed properly. But the best way to check that is to actually check the firmware version of the panel. So we'll go ahead and do that right now. So for the firmware, gray bar at the top. Go into SETTINGS. That's still loading, that's fine. Go into ADVANCED SETTINGS. I'm going to press 1111. We will check the ABOUT option. And we're going to go to Software. OK, so that's exactly what we are wanting. If you can see it right there, it says Software Version 4.4.1, which is what was showing when we were trying to get that initially downloaded. Again, before we did this, we were on version 4.3.0. And then now, if we actually go back to UPGRADE SOFTWARE and if we try using the Network option again, it's going to check for the updates and it's going to show us right there, "No Updates Available." So we are on the latest version that is available for the panel to download. And we are good to go. So it is a timely process. It can take a little bit of time, but as long as you're patient with the panel, let it do what it needs to do, that update will download. And again, we use the network option to get this downloaded, so you need to be on a Wi-Fi connection for that to go through. You can also have this sent down directly from your alarm company. You can do this through the Patch Tag option, where you enter in the actual download Patch Tag title, or you can use that AP option as well. That's if you don't have Wi-Fi available. So any of those options can get the firmware on the Qolsys panel fully updated. OK, so that is how you update the firmware for the IQ Panel 4. We made sure that the update went through. We checked the firmware after to confirm that as well. And everything went through just fine. If you did have any questions for us, feel free to contact us. Our support phone number is 888-818-7728. We have a support email. That email address is support@alarmgrid.com. And if you come back to our website, www.alarmgrid.com, we have a live chat service on there as well. So feel free to contact us in any of those ways and we'll be happy to help you. If you did like the video, please like the video, subscribe to our channel, and hit the bell icon to be notified about any future videos we release. Again, my name is Dylan. And thank you for watching.