Service Announcements Posts

For Thanksgiving this year, our Alarm Grid's president, Sterling Donnelly, has decided to fry a turkey in our special Alarm Grid turkey fryer. It's dangerous, yes, but if you've seen any of our Alarm Grid videos, you would know that Sterling is a dangerous man, performing all of his own stunts.

That said, we're still all a little bit nervous, and have decided to close down the office for the day in order to make sure that Sterling doesn't do something foolish and burn the company to the ground. So if you try to call in tomorrow and you get the answering machine, now you know why. We should be back up and running Friday, and we'll be on in a limited capacity on Saturday and Sunday as usual.

As is always the case, Alarm Grid's central station never shuts down. If you need to contact the central station for any reason, call the main number, and select option '1.'

Honeywell's award winning Tuxedo Touch keypads are not only beautiful touchscreen controllers for most Honeywell VISTA Series alarm control panels, they are also powerful Z-Wave home automation controllers. Adding a Tuxedo Touch keypad to your VISTA security system allows you protect your home and fully control your home's Z-Wave lights, Z-Wave locks and Z-Wave thermostats.

One feature that the Tuxedo Touch keypads has been lacking is the ability to control your home's Z-Wave devices using Honeywell's interactive Total Connect service. While you could turn on your Z-Wave lights from the actual touchscreen keypad, you could not use your Total Connect account to remotely control those same lights.

The original Tuxedo Touch and Tuxedo Touch WIFI both had internal web servers so that they could be connected to your IP network. If you connected your Tuxedo Touch to your network, you could access a virtual version of the Tuxedo screen to do home automation control. However, you had to setup complicated port forwarding if you wanted to access the virtual Tuxedo keypad while you were not home and connected to the same IP network.

We have all been patiently waiting for Honeywell to release new versions of the Tuxedo Touch keypads and we are happy to say our patience has finally been rewarded! The new Total Connect ready Tuxedo Touch and Tuxedo Touch WIFI keypads are available and shipping now!

With a new Tuxedo Touch and a monitoring plan that includes Remote Home Automation, you will have full control over your Honeywell VISTA Series security system. Not only will you be able to arm and disarm your system from your phone, but you will now be able to turn your home's lights on and off whenever you'd like. You will be able to set your thermostat to a specific temperature while you drive home from work. You can even unlock your door and disarm your system from anywhere in the world!

Even if you had an existing Tuxedo Touch and you have it setup to be controlled remotely, there are extra features that Total Connect remote home automation provides that a regular Tuxedo Touch will not.

The chart above highlights the advantages of upgrading your Total Connect service to include AlarmNet's remote home automation option. With extra available scenes on Total Connect and manual remote scene activation, connecting your Tuxedo Touch to Total Connect will bring total system control to the palm of your hand. You can even have Total Connect send you instant emails or text messages whenever a Z-Wave device or scene is activated so that you are kept aware of all things happening at your home.

If you already have a Tuxedo Touch WIFI installed, there is an available firmware update that will make Total Connect home automation control an option for you. Unfortunately, non-WIFI Tuxedo Touch units are built with a different circuit board and operate on an operating system that does not support this update. Therefore, if you have an existing Tuxedo Touch and want Total Connect home automation control, you will need to purchase a new Tuxedo Touch or Tuxedo Touch WIFI.

Happy Birthday America!

Alarm Grid has been in business just over a year now. And we celebrated our own birthday with cake, candles and a lot of high fives. Tomorrow, we're going to be celebrating America's independence day with giant rockets that go boom. We've bought thousands of bottle rockets, and we're going to make our glorious President, Sterling Donnelly, light them all while we watch at a safe distance.

Being as how lighting bottle rockets is a dangerous activity and requires the utmost concentration, we've decided to close our doors tomorrow so that we can ensure Sterling's safety. At this stage, we're just hoping that Sterling gets out of tomorrow with all his fingers (unlike last year).

Anyhow, it's a federal holiday, the post office is closed, and we're pretty sure that you will all be celebrating anyhow. So chances are you won't even notice that Alarm Grid is closed. But we thought we'd at least let you know why we're a bit inaccessible in case you decide to call in.

In the case that you need to reach us, please leave us a message, or email support@alarmgrid.com. We may not be in the office, but our staff will be checking messages and emails throughout the day.