Overview: The Qolsys Hardwire 16-F

Hi, DIYers. I'm George from Alarm Grid. Today, we're going to be going over with the Qolsys Hardwire 16-F does for you. So the Hardwire 16-F is actually very simple. It allows you to get wired sensors. It allows you to transmit the wired sensors into wireless frequencies, which will be 319.5. And then, whatever wireless alarm system you have that has that 319.5 receiver will actually receive that wireless signal and it will let the system know whether or not a door, window, smoke detector, whatever device is wired into the device is going off. So this 16-F it does transmit at a 319.5 megahertz frequency, which means only systems that have a 319.5 receiver will actually be able to work with this device. So this device would basically work with any Qolsys alarm system, the IQ, or the IQ2, the IQ2 Plus, as long as you have the correct flavor. And it will also work with the Interlogix systems like Simon XTi, XTi, XTi-5 or the XT. And the difference between this 16-F and the 16-S, which is S as in Sam. This is a 16-F as in Frank. We have a video on the S. The main difference is that this 16-F actually works with 2-wire smoke detectors. It doesn't work with any carbon monoxide detectors, so if you have any for that, you may want to think about, if they're wired, replacing them with a wireless one. But if you do have any 2-wire, hard-wired smoke detectors, you can actually use them with this 16-F as in Frank. All right. So the first thing I want to go ahead and do is open it up so you guys can see the inside. It comes with a little antenna. It does come with resistors. So whenever you're doing wired sensors, you need a resistor so that you can supervise the wired zone. So it comes with the resistors that you already need to strap on. You can do it in line, but in series basically. And these resistors, basically, is what's going to supervise your wired zone. It comes with a positive and a negative wire, so you can connect to your backup battery, which the Hardwire 16-F, it does not come with a backup battery. So one, you can use the backup battery that you have right now in your wired system or if you don't have a wired system, you can also just buy one from our site. We have the UltraTech 1240. That's the most recommended one. I'm going to put that back in here. And then, of course, we have the 16-F, which we actually already strapped in a bunch of resistors to it from one of our previous videos. But this was basically just to emulate a closed zone. But normally, when you get the 16-F, the inside will be completely blank. All right. There will be no resistors. It'll just be a blank motherboard. And as you see here, we have our zone terminals going on the bottom, along the top. We have our siren. Our power is going to be going into these terminals right here. So this is where the siren and the auxiliary power output are going to be going into. And these are going to be for the zone terminals, the open and close wires. So this is actually what you would be placing right next, if you're taking over a wired system and you're looking at upgrading to a wireless system. You would be using this. You'd place it right next to the beige metal cabinet. You would get your wired sensors. You'd fished them over. If you have the cover on here, they would just go in or from the bottom. And they would go into the wired terminals. Now, this one can hold up to 16, the same as a 16-S, the 16-F, if you haven't gotten the gist by now. 16 is the number of sensors that the actual device can hold. Now, if you guys are using more than 16 zones, you just have to make sure you add another one of these. Remember, if you're using a Qolsys that holds up to 128 sensors. So if you do the math, you can add a whole bunch of 16-F's if you really need to. For the smoke detectors, if you're using 2-wire smoke detectors, you can only have up to 10 of the 2-wire smoke detectors. And they need to be wired to zone 16. So if you-- I actually had it upside down. If you're looking for zone 16, it will show you on the actual right underneath the zone terminals. It will say zone 9, 10, 11, 12. Zone 16 actually says 2-W-SMK-2, 2-wire smoke detectors. That's what it's basically trying to let you know. So if you're using 4-wire smoke detectors, unfortunately, those will not work. Only 2-wire smoke detectors will. And other cool thing about this 16-F, just as the 16-S, it also supports wired sirens. Now, if you're doing wired sirens, you need to make sure that the siren does not draw more than 500 milliamps as that's all that this system or this device can output. So as long as the siren is within the 500 milliamps that the device can output, then you should be good. And depending on the RF peak version on your panel, the siren will actually follow the panel siren, meaning when the panel siren goes off, your siren will go off. When the panel siren goes down because you disarm the system, the panel siren will go down. The way to check if you have the RF peak version is by going to your IQ panel, hitting the little top button, going to Settings. It just let me know I had no Wi-Fi connection. I'm going to go to Advanced Settings. You're going to enter in your master dealer code or installer code. I'm going to use my default master code 1234. I'm going to go to About, then I'm going to go to Hardware, and I'm going to scroll down. Your RF peak version will be somewhere towards the bottom. And the RF peak version for mine right now is 11.1.7, but you only need 11.1.4 g2. As long as you have a higher RF peak version, then the siren will actually follow the panel siren. Now, one other important thing, I know I mentioned earlier that you do have to have the 2-wire smoke detectors wired into zone 16. The reason why is zone 16 is the only zone that will reset your smokes. When wired smoke detectors go off, they need to be reset so that they know to go back into detection mode, I guess, you can call it. So the zone 16 on this Hardwire 16-F will actually reset the smoke detectors after they have gone off. So again, if you're looking to upgrade from a wired system to a wireless system and you have a whole bunch of wired sensors, you need to add multiple of these. It comes with everything you need, the resistors, the backup battery cables, the transformer, the antenna. The only thing you'll need to buy extra will be the backup battery, and that's only if your existing system doesn't have one. If you guys have any questions about setting it up, if you guys have any questions about monitoring your alarm system, please feel free to contact us at Support@AlarmGrid.com If you found the video helpful, make sure you hit Like underneath, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and make sure you enable the notification, so when we upload new content, you guys get notified. I'm George, and I'll see you guys next time.