Scenes From Alarm.com Won't Be Pushed to GC3 or GC3e

Hi DIYers, this is Michael from Alarm Grid. And today I'm going to be talking about how a smart scene created in Alarm.com will not be pushed down to a 2GIG GC3 or 2GIG GC3e security system. Both the GC3 and GC3e, both these systems have a built in Z-Wave Plus controller for adding home automation devices, Z-Wave home automation devices. These can include devices like smart lights, door locks, thermostats, and there are some others. But when you pair a Z-Wave device to the panel, you can control it locally at the panel. And if the system is monitored, then it will also get pushed over to Alarm.com, and you can control it from that platform remotely using a mobile app on your phone or a web browser. But one important function of Z-Wave devices is the ability to create scenes or smart scenes. When you create a smart scene, it has multiple Z-Wave devices respond in a predetermined manner based on specific events or on a set schedule. So maybe if you arm your system, then a smart scene might be automatically triggered. Or maybe you might have a smart scene trigger at 6:00 PM every day. You can customize those on Alarm.com and set them up how you want or at the panel. But the important thing to note is that when you create a smart scene an Alarm.com, it does not get pushed down to the GC3 or a GC3e panel. In other words, you'll only be able to control that smart scene if you want to, manually execute it. You can only do that from Alarm.com using the mobile app or the web browser. It won't get pushed down to the panel so that you could control it locally at the panel. And also the vice versa is true. If you create a smart scene on the GC3 or GC3e, then it will only be available for local control. It won't be pushed over to Alarm.com. So while Z-Wave devices, they're shared between the panel and Alarm.com, when you enroll in a Z-Wave device, it does get pushed over to Alarm.com, provided that you're within the Z-Wave device limit of 122 Z-Wave devices, but scenes, that doesn't happen. It doesn't get pushed over automatically. So keep it simple. Any scene you create at the GC3 or GC3e will only be available at the panel. And any scene that you create on Alarm.com will only be available through alarm.com. That's how it is for the 2GIG GC3 and GC3e systems. Other Alarm.com systems might behave differently. But today we're just focusing on the GC3 and GC3e. Now I want to show you how you can create a scene at the panel, so that way you can control it locally at the panel. This scene will not get pushed over to Alarm.com. We don't have Alarm.com pulled up today. So we're just going to focus on the panel. Just note that if you wanted to create a scene that could only be manually executed at the panel, this is what you would do. Now we already have a couple of Z-Wave devices enrolled with our GC3e. We have a Z-Wave lock and a Z-Wave light dimmer. We did that off camera. They're already paired. But I do want to show you the scene creation process. So they're already paired. So if you don't have your Z-Wave devices paired yet, then make sure to follow those steps to get them paired with your panel. But we have ours pared, so we're at our GC3e security system. By the way, the steps are exactly the same if you're using a GC3, the non-e, the standard 2 gig GC3. But we have our GC3e today. And so what we're going to do, we're going to choose Smart Home Controls down here in the bottom left corner. And then we're going to choose Scenes. And you see right now, we don't have any scenes created at the panel. But we're going to make some today, one today, that is. We're only going to make one. We're going to click Edit Scenes. And then we're going to choose Add New Scene. And now it wants us to provide a name for the scene. We'll just use Tests, just to keep it simple. This is just for testing purposes. We'll click Next in the bottom right corner after we have chosen our name. And now we're creating the scene. So what we want to do is we want to add Z-Wave devices to the scene. And then we want to set how they will respond. So we're going to click the Add or Remove Devices button to add or remove items. And we'll add our light first. And I accidentally exited out of it, but we'll manage to hit the blue arrow this time. And I will choose Multilevel Switch. That's the switch we added earlier. And again, I guess you have to be very specific with your button presses, because I seem to be having trouble with that. We'll press the blue arrow this time. And this time, it did get added. You can see it over there off to the side. And when I press out of it, you can see we can set the light to a different level, depending on how we want it. So if we wanted it halfway, for instance, it looks like we have to drag the circle there. We can set it there. That's a little bit more than halfway. Let's set eyes to fully on. We don't want it dimmed at all. We just want it fully, completely on. So we set our switch. Now what we also do is we're going to add our lock to the scene as well. We'll do our lock. And we'll set our lock to unlock. We have our test lock. It looks like entry control is another lock that was previously enrolled with the system. We're going to use test lock today. And we're going to set it to unlocked. So it's green. You have the option between unlocked and locked, depending on how you want to use it. So our scene is built. So now we can press the back arrow on the left side. And we'll press the back arrow again here. And let's click on the Scenes button right here. And let's click on it. And you see it's been executed. And you can hear that our lock did unlock, our test lock. Our Z-Wave dimmer is off somewhere else, so you didn't hear a sound effect for that, and you didn't necessarily see anything. But rest assured, it did turn on the lights without being dimmed. So that's how you can create a scene. Now, we did this locally at the panel, so it's not going to get pushed over to Alarm.com. Now, if you were to create a scene in Alarm.com, that's it's own process there. It wouldn't get pushed down to the GC3 or GC3e. It would just be available at Alarm.com. So if you needed to control the scene remotely using a mobile app for a web browser, then that would be what you want to do. Now, you can also set the scenes to activate based on, like I said, predetermined system events or on a set schedule. And that can be really good for energy monitoring and just making your life more convenient. So that way you don't have to go and manually execute a scene. That's a very big important part and a reason many people create smart scenes right there. So I will back out to the main screen here, but I just want to give you a little brief overview. So to answer the question, a scene created in Alarm.com will not be pushed down to a 2GIG GC3 or GC3e, and a scene created at the panel will not get pushed over to Alarm.com. So if you have any questions about home automation, Z-Wave devices, the GC3e, or alarm monitoring services, send an email to support@alarmgrid.com. If he 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.