ELk M1 Keypad Function Key For Panic Button?

ultrajones

Active Member
Last week my neighbor across the street experienced an attempted burglary. The home owner heard several loud banging noises coming from her basement, so she called 911. While on the phone with 911, she yelled down into the basement and apparently startled the 2 thieves. As they were running out the basement door they broke, they ran directly into her pool. ;) Unfortunately, they still got away. The police dogs had traced them to the next street over. They apparently got into a car and fled the scene before the police arrived.

My wife is pretty freaked out. One of the things we felt would be a good idea is to use our Elk M1 keypads to cause an instant panic alarm. Does anyone have any ideas how I can have the Elk M1 keypad button F2 trigger an instant alarm (regardless if the alarm is armed or not)?

Regards,
Ultrajones
 
Does anyone have any ideas how I can have the Elk M1 keypad button F2 trigger an instant alarm (regardless if the alarm is armed or not)?
You can close a relay to trigger a Burglar 24-hour zone. This is what I do. It is absurd to have to dedicate hardware to this simple (and probably commonplace) requirement, but Elk does not provide for a "soft" alarm initiation, via rules alone AFAIK.

Alternatively you can send a signal of any sort to your home automation system and have it send back a "zt" (Zone Trigger) command (in theory anyway, I have not tested this approach).

Doing it the second way would introduce a dependency on your external system, while the relay method would be entirely in the M1.
 
If it is a situation where there is a perp in the house and/or you feel threatened, there is always the Duress code which calls out to the monitoring station. Those codes also typical get priority response. If you also wanted to sound the siren you could have a rule where if Duress code was entered then turn on the Siren output.
 
Does anyone have any ideas how I can have the Elk M1 keypad button F2 trigger an instant alarm (regardless if the alarm is armed or not)?
That would be what is called a panic button. Almost all residential alarm system keypads have them, as does the M1. But, in the case of the M1, they have to be programmed. This is very simple, and here is how to do it.

Using ElkRP,

1. Select the keypad to be programmed.
2. Under F2, click on the "Activated Event" box. Select "23- Police Alarm"
3. If you want the key to illuminate when pressed, then click on the Illumination Event" box, and choose "1005-Police Alarm"
4. One more thing to do....Under Communicator select "Keypad panic RCs", then in the "F2" row and "pulse" column, change 00 to 01 (This assumes you are using contact ID. If not, just post back for further instructions).

That is it. Just put your system on test with the monitoring company, then test it.
 
Is there a similar solution for rule-based (i.e., not via the keypad) alarm initiation?
The only way I can see is to do this is with a zone bypass; either in software (via rule THEN BYPASS ZONE), or in hardware as you have done with an output tied to a relay.
 
Does anyone have any ideas how I can have the Elk M1 keypad button F2 trigger an instant alarm (regardless if the alarm is armed or not)?
That would be what is called a panic button. Almost all residential alarm system keypads have them, as does the M1. But, in the case of the M1, they have to be programmed. This is very simple, and here is how to do it.

Using ElkRP,

1. Select the keypad to be programmed.
2. Under F2, click on the "Activated Event" box. Select "23- Police Alarm"
3. If you want the key to illuminate when pressed, then click on the Illumination Event" box, and choose "1005-Police Alarm"
4. One more thing to do....Under Communicator select "Keypad panic RCs", then in the "F2" row and "pulse" column, change 00 to 01 (This assumes you are using contact ID. If not, just post back for further instructions).

That is it. Just put your system on test with the monitoring company, then test it.
This worked perfectly! Thank you!
 
This is a great idea. But, I have kids in the house and was wondering if it was possible to use a two key combination on the keypad for this, to reduce false alarms caused by possible random button pushing.
 
This is a great idea. But, I have kids in the house and was wondering if it was possible to use a two key combination on the keypad for this, to reduce false alarms caused by possible random button pushing.
To activate the panic buttons, they either have to be held for two seconds or pressed twice in quick succession. If you want something other than that, it might be possible but I'd sure have to think on it.
 
This is a great idea. But, I have kids in the house and was wondering if it was possible to use a two key combination on the keypad for this, to reduce false alarms caused by possible random button pushing.
To activate the panic buttons, they either have to be held for two seconds or pressed twice in quick succession. If you want something other than that, it might be possible but I'd sure have to think on it.

FWIW, I had a similar concern, so using rules, I set-up my "panic button" in three stages --
1st press, turn on outside lights
2nd press, turn on certain inside lights
3rd press, activate burglar alarm
After 30 seconds, reset the keypress count to zero

In this design, the built-in keypad-based alarm activation can't be used, which is what led me down the path of wiring a relay to a zone to trigger an alarm.
 
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