How Do I Turn Off Sensor Voice Announcements on the IQ5 NS?

To turn off sensor voice announcements on the IQ5 NS, open the IQ Installer app, touch Config, then Sound, and turn off Sensor in Voice Settings. To silence one sensor, turn off its Voice Prompts toggle in the sensor's settings. Panel voices are separate. Chimes are separate too.

What Sensor Voice Announcements Are

The IQ5 NS (available in AT&T LTE and Verizon LTE) can speak the name of a sensor out loud through its speaker when the sensor is opened or tripped. The manual calls these voice prompts. For door and window sensors, voice prompts are on by default. For most other sensors, they are off. Activity Monitoring sensors also report out loud when they are closed.

There are two ways to turn them off in the IQ Installer app. You can turn off all sensor voices at once in the Sound menu, or you can turn off the voice for one sensor in its settings.

How to Turn Off Voices for All Sensors

1. Open the IQ Installer app and connect to the panel. Press the power button twice within 3 seconds and wait for the solid blue Status LED.

2. Enter the Installer Code or Dealer Code. The default Installer Code is 1111 and the default Dealer Code is 2222.

3. Touch the Config tab, then touch Sound. Sound is one of the Configuration menu buttons.

IQ5 NS Sound option in the Configuration menu

4. Find Voice Settings and turn off Sensor. The Sensor setting is enabled by default, and turning it off silences the sensor name announcements on every sensor.

How to Turn Off the Voice for One Sensor

1. Open the IQ Installer app and connect to the panel. Press the power button twice within 3 seconds and wait for the solid blue Status LED.

2. Enter the Installer Code or Dealer Code. The default Installer Code is 1111 and the default Dealer Code is 2222.

3. Touch the Config tab, then Installation, then Devices. This opens the Devices menu.

4. Touch Security Sensors, then touch the sensor. An Info page opens with the sensor's details.

5. Touch the pencil icon at the bottom of the Info page. This opens the sensor's fields.

6. Turn off the Voice Prompts toggle and touch Save. Voice Prompts is on by default for door and window sensors.

IQ5 NS Voice Prompts toggle in the sensor fields

What Stays On

Turning off the Sensor voice setting leaves the other voices alone. Panel voices, Activity Monitoring voices, and Z-Wave device voices each have their own setting in the same Sound menu, and the Voices setting above them is a global switch for all of them.

Chimes are separate from voices. The All Chimes setting is its own global switch, so the tone a sensor makes is not affected when you silence its name.

Why You Would Turn Them Off

A busy door or a motion sensor in a high traffic area can make the voice announcements frequent. Turning them off for a few sensors keeps the useful ones, such as an exterior door, while quieting the rest. If every announcement is a nuisance, the Sound menu switch turns them all off in one step.

Sensor voices are a convenience feature of your security system, so turning them off does not change how alarms are detected or reported. If you add home automation devices, their voices have separate settings, so you can quiet one group and keep the other.

How to Turn Them Back On

To turn sensor voices back on, repeat the same steps and turn the Sensor setting back on, or turn a sensor's Voice Prompts back on. Turning the Sensor setting back on restores the voices for every sensor that has voice prompts enabled.

Using the Alarm.com App and Other Devices

The voices you hear come from the system's own speaker, so the settings above control what the system says out loud. They do not change the alerts that your system sends to the Alarm.com app.

Turning off sensor voice announcements on your IQ5 NS quiets the sensor names it speaks, for every sensor or just one on the IQ5 NS. For help with voice settings or other Sound menu options or other configurations on your IQ5 NS, contact the Alarm Grid support team. We are here Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time. Email us at support@alarmgrid.com, call us at 888-818-7728, or visit our website and chat with a live support agent.