Using the Smart Areas Feature on the 2GIG GC3

Hey, DIYers. I'm George from Alarm Grid. Today, we're going to be going over how to use the Smart Areas feature on the 2GIG GC3 system. So what the Smart Areas feature is, it's a new feature that was introduced with the latest firmware on the GC3. And if you guys need help on updating the firmware, we also have an FAQ on how to do that. You're just going to need a USB and the file to download it onto. Very easy to upgrade. So yeah, if you guys are looking to do the Smart Areas feature, you guys need to upgrade your GC3 to the latest firmware update. Now, what the Smart Areas feature is, is if you've ever had a Honeywell system or if you've ever heard of partitioning, it's the same thing. So Smart Areas is the same thing as partitioning. What it allows you to do is control a certain set of zones independently from the rest of the alarm system. So, for instance, if you have an office in your home, and you want to arm the office separately from your house, you can do so by setting that to a Smart Area, all right? Now, I currently have my GC3 on the latest firmware update, so I'm going to go ahead and get right into it. I'm going to show you guys how to enable it, and how you can add zones to different Smart Areas, all right? So right now, if you look at my main screen, the bottom, as soon as I enable the Smart Areas, you're going to see a new button down there that's going to say Smart Areas. All right. Sorry. Let me back out of that. Didn't mean to press that. Now, first thing we need to do to enable that is go into the system programming. So you're going to need to know your installer code. Mine is defaulted at 1561. So yours may be different or it may have been changed by the monitoring company. So to get to programming, I'm going to hit the 2GIG icon on the top right, enter in my default installer code, 1561. I'm going to go to System Configuration. Then I'm going to go to Panel Programming. And soon as you're there, you need to go to Question 69. That's the one that's going to allow you to enable or disable the Smart Areas feature. So I'm going to hit the Go To. I'm going to type in 69. Go. And you'll see right now, it says "disabled." I'm going to go ahead and enable it. Then I can go ahead and hit Return to System Configuration. Hit the back arrow key one time. It's going to ask you to save the work. Shows you everything you did in that screen. As you see, the only thing I changed was the Smart Areas. I hit Save. System disarmed Not ready to arm. And now, if you see Smart Areas, that little orange button down there, it's going to ask you for a code. You can enter in your master code or your installer code. I'll enter in my master code, which is 1111. Yours, obviously, again, may be different if you or your company has changed it. Now, you'll see here, Smart Space two, three, and four are currently disabled. Why? Because I have not learned any sensors into it. I'm going to show you guys what it's going to look like once I do add sensors to it. So right now, you see disabled, disabled, disabled, and the normal system, let's say partition one, it says "not ready to arm" because my sensors are currently faulted, which means they're open. So you can choose to bypass the sensors at this point, but I'm going to show you guys how to add the zones to the different Smart Areas now. So again, we need to go into the programming. So you need to go ahead and hit the top right 2GIG icon. Enter in your installer code. 1561. Woo. Sorry. 1561. I'm going to go to System Configuration, and then this time, I'm going to Wireless Zones. I have three zones learned in currently. I'm going to go ahead-- I have one as my office. So I'm going to switch-- I'm going to hit on the office one. I'm going to hit Edit Zone. I'm going to go down to the Smart Area Assignments. This is where you assign the zones to a separate Smart Area. I'm going to assign, let's say, I want my office to be Smart Area number two. I'm going to then go back to zones. I'm going to hit the third one, and I'll switch this Smart Area to three, all right? I'm going to hit Return to System Configuration. Hit the back arrow key one time. It's going to let me know that I switched my zone two to Smart Area two and my zone three to Smart Area three. I'm going to hit Save. System disarmed. Not ready to arm. And now, when I hit Smart Areas, you're going to see Smart Areas two and three are going to be able to be armed and disarmed. So I'm going to hit 1111. And now, you see the only one disabled is four because I don't have a zone applied to that Smart Area. But Smart Area two-- or sorry, Smart Space two, Smart Space three, and the Regular System are both showing not ready to arm, again, because the zones are faulted. If you click the little Chat icon or the little Message icon, it will actually let you know what's going on with it right now. You can choose to bypass the sensors directly from this screen. You can bypass all. Let's return to the home screen there. And again, this is just different ways that you can set out Smart Areas and everything in your house or Smart Spaces, aka partitions as well. Now, I'm going to show you guys what it looks like on the app. So in order for it to show up on the app, it needs to be enabled on the system first. So if you guys are being monitored and you have the alarm.com application, I'm now going to show you what it looks like on the app. All right. So once you guys have your smartphone or your tablet or even the website pulled up, the first thing you want to do is go ahead and go to the website or to the app if you're using a smart device. I'm going to go open up my alarm.com. You're going to enter in your username and your password. So give me just one second while I enter in my credentials here. And, by the way, if you just recently, for instance, just right now, since I just updated my panel to enable the Smart Space or Smart Areas feature, it's very important that if you enable it on the panel, give it about, I would say, up to a minute, a minute and a half, maybe, for it to actually send up that feature up to the app. If you're logged into the app, try to log out. Stay logged out for about a minute and a half. I just experienced this myself, where it wasn't pulling into the app because it needed to be updated from the panel itself up to the alarm.com servers. So it does take a little second for it to adjust on your app. So if you don't see it right away, give it a few minutes, log out, and then log back in. You should see that now. Now that I have my app pulled up, you're going to see exactly what I see. You're going to see Security System. It's going to show you the partitions, which you can actually scroll through on the main page. Or if you look at the navigation bar to the left-hand side, you can hit the little Shield icon, and it's going to show you both of the partitions. Right now, they're showing as unknown because I haven't given them a name or anything. You can always name them yourself if you'd like to. But as you see on this Security System page, where it shows you the state of each partition, if you just scroll down, it's actually going to show you that partition two and three, the sensors are open. And that's because I don't have the magnets connected to the sensors. But you can also arm them still just by bypassing them. So you can go ahead and check mark it. I'm just going to go ahead and send a disarm command to both partitions. So I sent a disarm command to partition two and partition three, which, again, on the panel is actually referred to as Smart Areas or Smart Space. But yeah, I just wanted to show you guys a quick view of what it looked like on the app. You can arm and disarm the partitions individually through the app. So that's actually pretty cool. Not only can you do it through the panel, but you also have control of the individual Smart Areas through the app as well. If you guys do have any questions about the Smart Areas feature on the GC3, feel free to give us a call or even email us. Our email is support@alarmgrid.com. If you found this video helpful, make sure you hit the Like underneath, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and enable the notifications so that whenever we upload new content, you guys do get notified. I'm George from Alarm Grid. I'll see you guys next time.