Texecom Part Set Question

[Aturner44]

Hi,

I recently had an alarm installed by an alarm engineer. I won't go into too much detail as I don't like to bad name people, but basically he set it up entirely wrong, all the part sets were wrong, would set for one thing thinking we could walk around and it would go off... The annoying thing about it is I am quite competent but didn't want to upset the neighbours by doing it myself and potentially getting false alarms, so opted to get someone in to sort it properly. This was unfortunately a mistake, but anyway, I've since reprogrammed the alarm with Wintex, got it all working nicely.

I have one question about part sets that I can't seem to see an option for and I suspect isn't possible after many Google searches, but I thought I would ask here as alot of the information I have gathered has come from this forum.

I have used all 3 part sets, I have one part set named 'Shed Only', so everyone can come and go as they please but the shed, which is only really me that goes in there, is armed. Now when I set this part set, if I have any of the doors or windows open in the house, which are not on this part set, it alerts me to this and asks me to set it anyway, now that's fine at the keypad. I have however found a small discrepancy in how this behaves when I set via the Texecom App (yes, I know, it's widely hated), if I choose to ignore the fact that a door or window is open in the app and set the alarm anyway as a part set shed only, as soon as the alarm is set it goes off. Is there an option I'm missing to ignore the state of sensors that are omitted from that particular part set. I hope someone can understand all of that, and hopefully give me exactly the answer I'm after. I realise another way around this may be to split the house into areas as opposed to using the part sets, but I like the simplicity of the part sets, and that its already setup, as well as the fact I don't know how well the app will work with areas.

Cheers!!

 

[Handymanjo]

My preference would be to use areas.
Set house up in area A ,with partset 1 to turn off landing etc. Assign house its own code.
Set shed up in area B and assign shed its own code.
Allow main keypad all areas, local code.
You can set and unset each area via the connect app with no issues.
Using areas the shed can be armed all the time and you can then come and go in the house without thinks if shed is armed etc.

 

[secureiam]

To be fair the installer should have listened to what you wanted and advised accordingly.

As for all wrong it be impossible to say., certainly isn't what you wanted.

Caution ! you could place zones that may include open windows and doors on force omit attribute.
this would allow zones open at the time of setting to be omitted and to become available when the device is later secured, it will then trigger the alarm.

The problem being is you could leave lots of sensors off and be vulnerable to break in and the alarm not activate.

As for programming part sets.
with Handymanjo you could look at areas, so the shed is in its own area.
As for how you are using all 3 part sets its hard to say what the best options are for those part sets as don't know what you have or how you want it to work.

Back to the app:-

you can see which sensors are active in the app and omit that sensor by touching it and the sensor gets grey out, this should be in the user manuals and then set the alarm.

 

[Aturner44]

Sorry for the late reply, been playing alot with this.

I've decided to go down the area route, I was reluctant to do this as I wanted to keep it as simple as possible so that we maximise actually using the system.

I was worried about areas and the app, but as you both pointed out, you get the areas listed in the app nicely.

I have done a test run and set the shed as a area B, since put it back as it was, I need a fully functioning setup while I test the new setup.

I don't think I'm missing anything but it's of course possible, is there a way to have different part arm names for different areas?

So...

Area A, Part Arm 1, Bedtime

Area B, Part Arm 1, Shed Only

My 2nd question...

Is there a way to define which areas the SmartKey should arm/disarm, so for example when someone comes home and disarms the system with the SmartKey, the shed (Area B) doesn't get disarmed.

As far as I can tell there are no control options for this, I have thought of a way, create another user for the SmartKey's that is only able to control Area A. Feels a little hacky that way though.

Cheers!

 

[secureiam]

Unfortunately not:-

Whilst the areas can be individually part armed or full armed, there currently isn't a way to give them different names.

The smart key follows the user its assigned to.
You could assign the smart key to a user that has access to area A only.

The newer smart keys(been around a long time to be fair) have a prox tag at the top.

So its possible to use a smart key as two different users, the buttons for one user, the prox tag for another.

You can get creative and use PC Control to fire an Output, but its a lot of messing round, in tht output to a zone and programming the smart key for the PC control, then every time you use the smart key you have to put it into the pc control mode before activating pc control 1,2 or 3.

 

[Aturner44]

Cheers secureiam, I think setting up a user for the fobs will be the simplest way.

I like the prox tag / smart key idea, I do have the combined keys. Only issue is I'm using wireless keypads and the prox tags don't work great with them. I wish I could've gotten a cable to where the keypad is before we plastered! I've been trying to think of ways to get the cable to it but it's just not doable without damage and after living on a building site for 3 years, don't think that'll fly.

I think I'll just add the smart keys to their own user with limited access to area a only.

I realise using part sets within areas is getting into huge system territory really, so maybe it's available on the bigger panels, but it does seem like an oversight.

 

[daern]

FWIW, I went down a similar path with my setup. After a few dead ends which were cumbersome to use (with resultingly low WAF!) I ended up with two areas ("house" and "outbuildings") which are set completely independently. Each has a different part-set configuration (e.g. garage armed, sheds disarmed for when someone needs access to the mower) but work entirely independently. Users can only set/unset the house from they keypads within the house, or the outbuildings from a keypad located within one of the buildings and can then choose a part-set program for that specific area as required.

Upside of this - it's very simple to use. The two areas effectively operate as completely independent alarm systems, albeit sharing comms / outputs / bells etc. It's has good WAF as she knows which keypad does what (or just uses the house app to do it remotely) and it's relatively easy if she just wants into the shed - disarms the outbuildings, and then immediately re-arms it using the "home" part-set which she knows leaves the rest secured.

As a bonus, the shed has a small LED which switches between green and red so you know whether or not it's alarmed :

 

[Aturner44]

Yeah I agree, my original plan was to stick to part arms in order to keep it simple. However by adding a keypad to the outbuildings, like you say, I can make the 2 areas completely independent. I am not going to enable area B on area A keypad and vice versa, I have tried it and setting which area from the keypad isn't the easiest, so I know it will confuse people. I like to have as many ways of achieving the same result, but simplicity has to be the main aim. I was going to put a keypads in the 2 separate outbuildings but I'll just stick to one, maybe a minor nuisance as you'll have to enter outbuilding 1 to disarm 2, but I don't like the idea of reducing the security level of my workshop by allowing an entry/exit door, I know I can set it to 10 seconds but I'd rather it was instant. That's how it's setup for now anyway.

Don't know how much you guys use home servers and such stuff, but not so long ago a guy developed an add-on for HomeAssistant called Texecom2MQTT, which allows you to use the alarm system as part of your smart home. It's getting a little out of hand now, I've got the lights setup to flash twice red once the alarm is set, green for disarm, only just started playing with it but with the amount of sensors involved with the alarm does open up alot of possibilities.