We are an alarm.com partner and do not work with TC, but we have a client who has one and asked us:
Jay, we have a report Honeywell Total Connect 2.0 Tested that might help. This is outside of my expertise so I'll leave it to Rhodes to follow up beyond that.
Hi Jay! I have a couple of sr techs that installed Honeywell for 10+ years, and TC was also our goto offering up until 2016. We are now using ADC with DSC Neo, far superior in almost every way IMHO.
If memory serves me correctly auto arm/disarm is progammed into the vista panel itself and can be used to arm in away mode. This is not supported by TC directly but TC does allow upload/download via the compass program so I believe it can be implemented and adjusted remotely.
It’s still early here in Cali so I will ask one of the guys and get back to you later today with specifics (which fields to toggle, limitations, etc).
Is this a residential or commercial customer? If residential, I'd stay away from auto arming. With commercial customers I use auto arm sparingly, and you can auto arm a Honeywell system in the away mode with interior zones active. Janitorial services will sometimes conflict with auto arming schedules when the janitors arrive earlier or later than scheduled. And conflicts sometimes occur when employees work late and forget how to delay or cancel an auto arming action or they don't hear the keypad warning that an auto arm is about to occur.
You'll need to disable the Auto Stay feature in the panel. I always disable the Auto Stay feature because remotely arming via TC2, when the home or business is unoccupied, will result in the arming switching from Away to Stay, leaving the premises without interior zones armed. Also, if you try to arm a system, of an unoccupied premise, to the Away mode remotely via Compass, and the Auto Stay feature is active, it will only arm in the Stay mode. The Auto Stay feature seemed like a great idea when first introduced, but it seems to cause more confusion for some customers, therefore, I never enable this feature. Never use Auto Stay in a commercial account.
Auto Arm is enabled via programming the alarm panel, either at the keypad or via Honeywell's Compass Upload/Download software. If there is a way to do this type of programming through Total Connect 2.0 I'm not aware of it.
If you are taking over a Honeywell system, and aren't that familiar with Honeywell, I strongly recommend you register for access to mywebtech.Honeywell.com. On mywebtech.honeywell.com, you can obtain specific documents addressing these questions, such as how to set up auto arming. I've emailed Honeywell Tech Support through mywebtech.Honeywell.com on several occasions and found them to be quite responsive.
If the customer's Honeywell alarm panel is a Vista 20P, page 17 of the 3/15 Honeywell Programming Guide, address *189 AUI Device Enables helps to explain the issue of remote services (TC2 / Compass) and Auto-Stay. When using this panel with just one partition I disable the Auto-Stay feature by entering a "5" in the box "AUI 2".
It's a funny story.
We were at a home show and 2 other alarm companies were there, one national and one large local company. We had a couple conversations after the show but they decided to use the large local company and opted for the DIY option, even though the pricing was the same as our installed 2GIG option.
They now can not get the results they want and asked us for help. They have provided us some good feedback on why they chose someone else, so in return, I am trying to get them some info.
The panel is a Honeywell Lynx I believe. Here it is from their site.
I seldom use Lynx, have very few in the field and have a Lyric on the bench for testing.
Based on the home show and the type of panel, I'm assuming the potential client is asking you about a residential install. In that case, I would make sure everyone is speaking about the same feature and they are not asking about something else, such as Remote Arming in Away. This could be just one big misunderstanding of their system, combined with using incorrect terminology when referencing their alarm system. If their system was setup incorrectly with Total Connect combined with the Auto Stay feature, then they're probably complaining about the inability to arm in Away through TC2. If that is the case, the installer should have disabled the Auto Stay feature under Global System Definition, an easy program change. The Auto Stay feature is defaulted to enabled on that panel.
I find that some folks often use incorrect terms when talking about their alarm system. They commonly refer to a keypad as the control panel. In the case of the Lynx they're correct, in other scenarios it takes some effort to get them on the same page.
A customer called once and told me that the motion detector was making a sound, "it was literally screaming at her when she walked into the room." I tried to convince her that the sound could not have come from the motion detector, that it must be something else, that it doesn't have a speaker or siren inside. She insisted something is wrong and demanded it be looked at, so I rolled the truck. This was a takeover, an old DSC Power 832 panel with the Auto Stay feature enabled along with Interior Zone Delay and no remote access, so I did not turn off the Auto Stay feature, kept the zone programming as that was what the customer wanted. She pointed to the motion detector and insisted she heard the noise coming from it. The keypad was just around the corner. To replicate the events just before the "noise", we armed the system, remained inside and then walked into the room. The system began the pre-alarm warning from the keypad around the corner, and she said,"That's it, that's what I heard", but still insisted the noise was coming from the motion detector. She told me she knows about Auto Stay feature and had some accidental alarms when others were staying over, but insisted she did not open a delay door when she armed this time. I think she may have forgotten she opened the door shortly after arming and did not go outside.
Bottom line, find out if they are referring to Remote Arming in Away, that they are not confusing it as Auto Arming in Away. It may be just a miscommunication.
Sorry, rereading your post, I just noticed this was a DIY install. Still assuming it's residential, the homeowner failed to disable the Auto Stay feature or the company who did their remote Alarmnet programming failed to disable that feature. They need to call the company who setup their Alarmnet account and have the Auto Stay feature disabled.
Also, if they are truly are interested in Auto Arming, I'm not sure if the L5210 or L7000 can be used like the Vista series with conventional Auto Arming per schedule. The L5210 is a Home Automation panel and can use Z-Wave for scenarios that automate various actions such as light control, door locks, water shutoff valves, etc. when arming/disarming. This may be what they really want to accomplish. In that case they'll need a Z-Wave module for the panel and then lots of communication with their Alarmnet provider.
Yes it is residential but it is a rehab/flip so it is unoccupied at night.
As it turns out, it looks like answering emails on the weekend has earned me some brownie points as he is now thinking about returning the unit and going with us. We intend on using a 2GIG and using a commercial ADC plan to facilitate auto arm.
When I say auto arm, I mean the alarm should arm away every night at a specific time. I know some of these details were not specified at the beginning so I know opinions may change now.
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