Turning Off the Siren on a Qolsys IQ Panel 2 Plus

Hey, DIYers. I'm George from Alarm Grid. Today, we're going to be going over if you can turn the siren off on a Qolsys IQ Panel 2 system. The quick easy answer to that is yes, you can turn the siren off. The only instance I would see you'd want to turn the siren off would be for testing purposes. If someone's in the house, you want to test the sensor, they're sleeping. Or if you just don't want loud noises while you're testing, that really is the only reason I would think you guys would want to turn the siren off. Normally, you guys are getting an alarm system for security purposes. You guys want to be alarmed whenever an alarm is going off. So you normally don't want to disable the siren. So right now, I'm basically just going to be showing you what the normal siren sounds like on the IQ 2, and then I'm going to show you guys how to disable it completely. So right now, we have the IQ panel 2. It has a built in 85 decibel sounder. If you guys want to add a louder siren to it, you guys can add a Qolsys IQ siren. It's actually a Z wave siren and alerts into the panel through Z wave frequency. And it actually plugs into a wall outlet, and that one does I think 105 decibels. So if you guys want something louder than 85 and somewhere else in the house than from where the main system is at, you guys can always get the Qolsys IQ siren as well. You guys can also add a hardwired siren to it. For that, you do want to make sure you look at our FAQ for hardwired sirens to the IQ 2 because there are specific power requirements that you guys will need. Now, on this IQ 2, I have a smoke detector and a burg front door sensor, let's say. So for instance right now, my sirens are enabled. So if I go to set off an alarm, so I'm just going to arm it real quick, and show you guys an example. If I do an Arm Away, and then I open up my door sensor, it goes into an alarm mode, and the siren is obviously enabled. My ears are ringing. If I get the smoke detector, and I test it. It's also going to be setting off a fire alarm on the panel, which you actually heard. It's actually a different temporal sound. It has three constant beeps, a pause, three constant beats, a pause. So that signifies a smoke detector. Now, if you don't want any of these sirens for whatever reason. Normally, it's going to be if you're testing. If you want to disable them, here's one thing you can do. We need to go ahead and hit the little gray button at the very top. Go to Settings. Right now, my panel's not connected to Wi-Fi. If you have yours connected to Wi-Fi, you shouldn't see this warning. I'm just going to hit OK to exit out of that. I'm going to make my way over to Advanced Settings. Now, to disable the siren, you do need to know your installer code or your dealer code. The default installer codes and dealer codes that come with the IQ2 Panel 2, if you bought it brand new, are 1, 1, 1, 1 and 2, 2, 2, 2. So I can literally enter in either one of those into here, and it'll work fine. I'm just going to do 1, 1, 1, 1. I'm going to go to Installation, Sirens and Alarms, and as you see here, the first option says Panel Sirens. Underneath it says, "Currently all sirens are enabled." So I'm going to open up that dropdown, I'm going to go ahead and do All Sirens Off. You also have the option to do Installer Test Mode, All Sirens Off For Only 30 Minutes. Now, I'm going to show you guys how both of them, what they make the panel do. So if I do the first option, the all sirens, sorry, All Sirens Off. Now, you see the gray thing, the gray little description at the bottom, it says, "Currently all sirens are disabled." So after you disable the sirens, you can go ahead and hit the Home button. Now, one thing about that that's a little misleading is when it says, "Currently all sirens are off," that is not the actual case. It is only referring to burg sirens or medical panics or burg panics as well. So for instance, if I go ahead and arm my system Away again, and I get my door sensor, and I open it, the burg siren is completely off, but the system is still letting you know that, hey, you have a front door alarm. From there, again, if you're doing testing purposes, you just disarm the system using your master code. Mine is defaulted at 1, 2, 3, 4, which you've seen me enter in in the previous alarms to disable them. Yours obviously may be different if you've changed it. However-- remember how we did all sirens off-- if we set off a fire, a smoke detector, the siren will still alarm. So it doesn't necessarily actually mean all sirens are off, I believe it's just referring to the burg sirens and medical panics. You'll see right here. I'm going to disarm it. And as you guys had seen, we had actually set the setting to all sirens off. You guys saw when I set off the burg. It didn't cause the sirens go off. But when I set off the smoke, it did. By medical panic, we have the panic down in our bottom right corner. If I do an Auxiliary, it also will not sound. So if you have any medical panics, and you guys do that option in the sirens and sounds that I told you guys about, it's only going to silence burg alarms, burg panics, or medical panics. The fire alarms will still sound. Now, if you guys are doing testing and you don't want any sirens whatsoever, then we have to go back to that screen again where sirens and sounds, we're going to hit the gray button at the very top. Go down to Settings. Hit OK. Go to Advance Settings. Enter in 1, 1, 1, 1, or 2, 2, 2, 2, your installer code or dealer code. We're going to go to Installation, Sirens and Alarms, I'm sorry, it's not Sirens and Sounds. It's Siren and Alarms. And right now, as you can still see, it still says, "Currently all sirens are disabled." Now, to shut off all sirens including the smoke detector and smoke fire panics or anything like that, you're going to go ahead and do Installer Test Mode, All Sirens Off For Only 30 Minutes. It switches the description, you're going to hit Home. And now, watch again, I'll go ahead and arm my system Away. I'll open up my door sensor. This also will not cause an alarm. There we go. So it's acting as it should. Close that. And this time, the smoke alarm should also not cause a siren to go off. Again, 1, 2, 3, 4. I can even set off a fire panic and again, it will not sound. I enter in my code again to this arm the system. So as you see, the only true way to disable all of the sirens for every single one of the alarm responses that you're getting, whether it's fire, burg, medical, CO or anything like that, is to do the installer test mode for the 30 minutes. The panel All Sirens Off, it's only going to silence the burg and the medical alarms. And it will not silence the fire alarms. So if you guys are going to be testing fire, and you guys don't want these sirens go off, make sure you do the Installer Test mode. Now again, you don't really want to turn the siren off. Again, you bought the system for security purposes, if you're at the house, you want to hear whenever an alarm goes off. You don't want just a panel to announce it and then you never know. If you guys have any questions about these settings or how to test your system or even how to turn the siren off, feel free to email us at support@alarmgrid.com. If you found this video helpful, make sure you hit Like underneath, subscribe to the YouTube channel and enable the notifications so whenever we upload new content, you guys get notified. I'm George, and I'll see you guys next time.