We purchased a new home last fall that had an existing DSC hardwired system. I had some experience using Simplisafe at a previous residence and knew I wanted to go the DIY route again but I was looking for something more advanced than Simplisafe this time around. After several months of research, including a lot of time lurking on this site, I purchased a GC3, Takeover module, and several new Honeywell 5800 series sensors.
The new system is installed and I love it. I will be signing up for the DIY plan from SuretyDIY prior to choosing the central station monitoring option because I want to test it a bit. I am a little gun shy of false alarms based on my previous experiences with Simplisafe and want for play it safe for awhile.
This is a fantastic site and I enjoy the sharing of information that occurs.
I am still learning about the GC3 and think it appears to be very promising. Like many others, I am anxiously awaiting a firmware update because I really want to be able to take advantage of things like wifi and image sensors.
One question I can’t seem to find an answer to is how can I set up an auxillary siren or speaker to notify me of door chimes and voice announcements like “front door”? I want to be able to hear these announcements when I’m upstairs. Based on the reading I’ve done it appears the only way to do this is by using the TS1 but it also appears that the TS1 will not work with the GC3. Is that correct?
One question I can’t seem to find an answer to is how can I set up an auxillary siren or speaker to notify me of door chimes and voice announcements like “front door”? I want to be able to hear these announcements when I’m upstairs. Based on the reading I’ve done it appears the only way to do this is by using the TS1 but it also appears that the TS1 will not work with the GC3. Is that correct?
Yep. Only the PAD1 is a compatible keypad for the GC3 at this time.
One question I can’t seem to find an answer to is how can I set up an auxillary siren or speaker to notify me of door chimes and voice announcements like “front door”? I want to be able to hear these announcements when I’m upstairs. Based on the reading I’ve done it appears the only way to do this is by using the TS1 but it also appears that the TS1 will not work with the GC3. Is that correct?
A dedicated Secondary touchscreen keypad similar to the TS1 will be coming out for the GC3, likely later this year.
Thanks for the heads up Jason! I definitely need a way to hear alarms, chimes, etc when upstairs. We are too far away from the main panel and the existing sound isn’t loud enough for us to hear it well unless we are downstairs. And yes, I have adjusted the volume to its highest settings.
Alarms can be handled by Zwave sirens or, if you can run some wiring, the two open collector outputs in the GC3 are relays which may be programmed independently to follow the internal sounder on the GC3, or specific alarm types. A piezo siren can be wired to have power interrupted and applied using the open collector ports.
A supervised bell output for solid state sounders of up to 120 ma is also available.
Are there any updates on the GC3 auxiliary panel? We currently have a the CP21 with two TS1s. We are moving to a new house and would like to go with a CG3 main panel in the new house but really need the auxiliary panels.
