Building materials, obstructions, distance, and general RF interference are highly variable across different environments and from time of day. It is for this reason that we highly suggest you adhere to the following guidelines to ensure that your wireless system operates to the best of its ability.
Adding your Wireless Hub to Command:
Take the cover off of your alarm hub and plug the device into a PoE Switch
Go to All Products > Add Device and select a site. This will be your Alarms site
Enter the 12-character serial number beginning with DQ6 located on the bottom of the device or on the box that was provided
After activating your hub, follow the setup flow to configure your Alarms site, if you added it to an existing Alarms site you can simply exit out of this flow
Navigate to the Alarms Devices tab and verify that your wireless hub is reporting online and the LED on the hub is solid blue
Adding your Wireless Sensors to Command:
Place your wireless sensors right next to the wireless hub. We will be verifying that all of your sensors are properly communicating with your hub and reporting events to Command prior to installing the sensors in their final locations.
Adding your Wireless Sensors by SN:
Select the Devices page then select Add Device and select a site. This is the Alarms site that your wireless sensor will be associated with
Enter the 12-character serial number located on the sensor or on the box that was provided and select Activate
This will automatically associate the sensor to the Alarms site and the hub(s) in your organization
Note: Wireless sensors and hubs do NOT have to exist in the same Alarms site. Sensors will communicate automatically communicate with the closest physical hub that exists in your entire organization.
Power ON your Wireless Sensors
When the sensors are first powered on, they will automatically try to join the closest hub to report their status.
Pull the battery tabs from your sensor(s) to power on the device.
Initiate trigger event(s) as detailed in the Wireless Deep Dive guide above for your particular sensor (door open/close, motion detected, button press, etc.)
Validating Wireless Sensor Coverage
From this point, we should place the hub as close to the desired location as possible such as the center of the floor/building for maximum coverage.
The most recent sensor events will be time-stamped in the Alarms site Devices tab. You can monitor this page to ensure that sensor events are being reported to Command and the sensor's current signal strength
Relocate your wireless sensors to their desired install locations and send several trigger events (door open/close, motion detected, panic button press, glass break tester, and shorting the metal contacts on the water sensor) The lowest recommended RSSI recommended is -85. Values lower such as -90, -95 etc as discourages as this weak of signal strength means that the senors will likely drop offline and experience difficulties upgrading. -85 provides a safer barrier to the variability in environmental changes so this issue is less likely to occur.
If the events are being reported to Command, you can install the sensor in its final location and send one more event for good measure, otherwise:
If no events are being received, move closer to the hub to determine if the issue is related to signal coverage
If you find that events are being received when you move closer to the hub, perform a site walk to determine if there are any obstructions that could be dampening the signal
You can also choose to reposition the hub for better coverage and restart the testing
Finally, if the above fails you may want to consider purchasing an additional hub and license to fully cover your floor/building
Command Configuration:
At this stage, we want to verify our Alarms site settings and validate system operations by raising a few test alarms.
Place your Alarm Site in Test Mode
When the system is placed in test mode, the system and monitoring agents will still go through the Alarms flow but will NOT dispatch emergency services unless you explicitly request it.
Enable Emergency Dispatch
Enable Monitoring Test Mode
Configure User Call List and Notifications
At least one user with a phone number must be subscribed to receive a call from our monitoring agents. In the below example, Gary would be the first person to receive a call and Adam would be the second to be called if Gary is unavailable. Both users will receive SMS and email notifications when an alarm is raised.
Add Wired and/or Wireless Sensors as Triggers
All added sensors will be used as triggers
For some sensors such as door contact sensors and panic buttons, there are additional settings that can be configured. Select the edit icon next to the sensor to access these settings.
Arm the Site and Raise a Test Alarm
Arm the Alarms site from Command, and monitor the Activity Tab
Trigger your sensors and after the entry delay has elapsed, an alarm should be raised. Users on the notification list can resolve the alarm by spelling out their last name and phone number associated with their account to the monitoring agent. Command users can also manually resolve the alarm banner or by disarming their system.
You can expand the alarm-raised event to see all of the sensors that were tripped under the alarm period by clicking the red See Details button. In this view, you will see details on the flow of events for the raised alarm event. Clicking See more will expand the list of device events and include context camera footage for said events if configured.
Final Check
Under the Alarm site devices tab, ensure that all of the wireless sensors have populated at least one event.
