Garage Door Recommendation, Force Arm?

[scriptx]

Warning, noob oriented question.

All, I have been reading the M1G manual trying to figure out what to do with my garage.

I have an attached garage with garage door opener. I want to setup the garage door as a monitored zone.

If that is the case, then if I set it up as an exit delay, the manual states I have a range of 45 to 255 seconds. While I can easily get out the door in 255 seconds, my wife, well, lets just say I don't see that happening, ever.

So, it appears that my other option is to "force arm", but then unless I am misunderstanding, I have to enter a code in twice, everytime. Is there a way to just say, when armed, for the next 15 minutes, ignore opening of closing of this zone (the door)?

Last question (for this post anyway), how do people handle coming home with the garage door opener? Do you program something like, if door opens, give say, 5 minutes to disarm alarm?

Thanks in advance for your help. It is appreciated.

 

[sic0048]

Force Arm is what I think you want to use. It is a little inconvenient to have to arm the system this way however.

Force Arm allows a violated zone to be temporarily bypassed upon arming. Prior to
arm, the READY light blinks if force arm zone(s) are the only zones violated. Force arm
requires two entries of a user code. Quick arm cannot be used. Upon the first code entry
the keypad displays READY FORCE. The second code entry will force arm. Force arm
zone(s) automatically return to service if they become normal while armed. CAUTION!
Force arm operates in a unique way on entry/exit zones! - Entry/Exit zones that are
also force armable can be violated during the exit delay and still become force armed.
This allows a user to arm, open a garage door, back out, and then shut the door at their
leisure, without creating a false alarm and without a long exit delay time. As soon as the
garage door is closed, it will automatically return to service. Default setting is No.

As far as coming home, I think you have the same 10-255 seconds to delay the entry (use the Entry #2 timer for the garage doors so you can leave your normal doors on a shorter time schedule).

 

[scriptx]

That was my fear and will fly much worse than a lead balloon. I'll just forgo the garage and just keep the tools and anything of value in a shed like I do today. If something comes out in the future to address, I can always add the garage into the system!

 

[electron]

Totally offtopic, but Mythbusters has proven that lead balloons can fly

 

[Digger]

That was my fear and will fly much worse than a lead balloon. I'll just forgo the garage and just keep the tools and anything of value in a shed like I do today. If something comes out in the future to address, I can always add the garage into the system!

If you have an RF receiver already in place you can add a keyfob and arm/disarm with it. You can have the ELK chirp the outside siren and/or blink a light to provide confirmation.

Or you can put an arming station in the garage to allow the system to be armed/disarmed from there cutting down on the time to get to the keypad to arm/disarm.

 

[tmbrown97]

Or you can handle this entirely through rules. We had a thread going on about this a while back. Set the garage door to a non-alarm zone. Use rules to set a timer when the system is armed - then after the timer expires, if the door is still open, trigger your action. Same thing on entry - when I get around to this, my plan was to start a running 5-minute timer when the garage door opens while the system is armed. After 5 minutes, I'd chirp a piezo buzzer in the garage (I have an M1XOVR in the garage with extra outputs and 12V so this is easy). After 60 more seconds, the event would trigger.

Now - when I say event - that could be an alarm or a notification of some sort (call your cell, e-mail you, etc). I've seen differing opinions on whether or not to trigger the alarm - it can attract attention to the open door - but if someone broke in, attention could be good.

Problem is - there's no way to actually trigger the elk alarm via rules. To pull it off, you'd have to burn an output and another zone. Basically you'd hook the common and NC wires to a zone - and set that zone to an instant-trigger burglar-perimiter (NC). Use a rule to turn on the output for 1 second and it'll basically violate the zone triggering the alarm.

It just didn't seem to me that the combination of entry/exit delays were sufficient - and I know I don't want to deal with the force arming procedure. By doing it all through the rules you do waste a zone and an output as I mentioned, but then you have total control. You can also trigger events that'll close the door again if it doesn't close properly after you leave.

 

[sic0048]

I have my garage set up as a force arm and bypassable. I'm not sure if this is correct, but it allows me to arm the system with only putting in my code once. I also have the quick arm options turned on (or what ever it is called when you can just press the arm button without putting in your code).

If the garage door is down, then simply pressing the arm buton starts the exit countdown without putting in my code. If the garage is up, I can force arm the system by simply putting in my code once. Doing this starts the exit countdown.

I think what really happens is that the system is bypassing the garage door, but honestly I don't know. It seems to work, but I guess I should test it a little further to see what happens if the exit timer expires with the garage still up ,etc, etc.

 

[scriptx]

There was a thread a while ago, I apologize, I searched a number of phrases and didn't find much dealing directly with this! These are all good options. I am going to them all this weekend before I start running actual wire through the house (great tip I found on this board BTW, which you would think is common sense, but alas, I had none until I read it)

 

[illusionsnismo]

I'm new here, but I have a question about the Elk alarm. On the Ademco units I am familiar with, there's a 'vent zone' setting available. If a window is open when the alarm is set, the alarm is happy. Once the zone is closed, then it drops back into normal alarm activity. Does the Elk have something like this?

HTH,
Eric

 

[sic0048]

I'm new here, but I have a question about the Elk alarm. On the Ademco units I am familiar with, there's a 'vent zone' setting available. If a window is open when the alarm is set, the alarm is happy. Once the zone is closed, then it drops back into normal alarm activity. Does the Elk have something like this?

HTH,
Eric

Yes. Elk calls it a bypass zone. You must specify which zones can be bypassed, but if the window that is open is allowed to be bypassed, then it can by bypassed at the keypad. Once a zone it bypassed, as soon as the zone becomes secure (closed), then it works as normal. If the window is opened again, then it will set the alarm off.

 

[jokah]

So if im reading this correctly,

You would set the garage to be a bypass zone

Ideally keypads in the garage close to garage door opener.

Hit the garage door opener before you hit the ARM button. You could take 2 minutes or 2 hours to dink around in the garage?

Once youre done and you close the door, its armed?




....Now does the ELK have an option to disarm the garage from the car with a a fob or Homelink converter? So when doors opened, garage is disabled, or something like that. For those with small children, etc, that would be nice.

 

[sic0048]

So if im reading this correctly,

You would set the garage to be a bypass zone

Ideally keypads in the garage close to garage door opener.

Hit the garage door opener before you hit the ARM button. You could take 2 minutes or 2 hours to dink around in the garage?

Once youre done and you close the door, its armed?

That is exactly right.

....Now does the ELK have an option to disarm the garage from the car with a a fob or Homelink converter? So when doors opened, garage is disabled, or something like that. For those with small children, etc, that would be nice.

You can use a key fob to disarm the system. If you hook the garage door opener to a ELK relay, you could set up some rules that if the fob is used to disarm the system and the garage door is closed, then open the garage door. That would allow you to use one button on the fob to disarm and open the garage door.

If you don't want the fob to be able to disarm you entire alarm system, then you could set the garage up on a different partition. Then you could arm and disarm the garage using the fob, but the main house would still be armed/disarmed separately using the normal keypads.

 

[AceCannon]

CAUTION!
Force arm operates in a unique way on entry/exit zones! - Entry/Exit zones that are
also force armable can be violated during the exit delay and still become force armed.
This allows a user to arm, open a garage door, back out, and then shut the door at their
leisure, without creating a false alarm and without a long exit delay time. As soon as the
garage door is closed, it will automatically return to service. Default setting is No.

I'm still confused with how I will handle the garage OHDR's (overhead doors). The max entry/exit delay time is 255s (4min 15sec) which could be a little short at times (wife, child in a car seat, groceries, etc).

The quote above makes it sound like force-armable zones take care of the exit part (as long as the OHDR is OPENED during the exit delay time. Presumably could be CLOSED after the exit delay and still return to normal service). But entering a code twice is suboptimal for the WAF.

But for entry and OHDR's, it sounds like 255s is what we have to work with?

The more I think about it, the more I think I will encourage the wife to accept the 4.25min delay and just make the OHDR's "enter/exit 2" zones. She will need some sort of voice prompt as far as how much time she has left. I have not paid attention yet: does the Elk do some sort of voice countdown or is that done only with rules?

 

[pete_c]

Personally do active monitoring but do not use the garage door closure for arming/disarming the alarm. This is relating to a WAF "glitch" from a few years back which at the time put my HA in jeopardy.

 

[sic0048]

I'm still confused with how I will handle the garage OHDR's (overhead doors). The max entry/exit delay time is 255s (4min 15sec) which could be a little short at times (wife, child in a car seat, groceries, etc).

The quote above makes it sound like force-armable zones take care of the exit part (as long as the OHDR is OPENED during the exit delay time. Presumably could be CLOSED after the exit delay and still return to normal service). But entering a code twice is suboptimal for the WAF.

I have my ELK system set up for the "one-button arm" feature. I only have to enter my code once to force arm the system. So I walk up to the keypad and it reports as something like "SystemReady - Force Arm" I simply put in my 4 or 6 number code and the system arms itself in away mode and starts the exit 1 delay. No other key presses are required. I do not put my code in twice.

If the garage door is already down, then I can simply press the Arm Away or Arm Stay button and it arms they system without requiring a user code.

I do have to enter my user code to disarm the system, regardless of what mode (stay, away, etc) it is in.

But for entry and OHDR's, it sounds like 255s is what we have to work with?

The more I think about it, the more I think I will encourage the wife to accept the 4.25min delay and just make the OHDR's "enter/exit 2" zones. She will need some sort of voice prompt as far as how much time she has left. I have not paid attention yet: does the Elk do some sort of voice countdown or is that done only with rules?

The ELK does not automatically count down, but you could add that with rules pretty easily.