Ademco Honeywell Vista 20P Kits

The Honeywell Vista 20P is a very flexible system that is very scalable and modular to fit an extremely wide range of needs. There are 8 hardwired zones built into the panel which is often enough zones for a small installation. The total number of zones can be expanded by another 40 zones through hardwired or wireless expansion; making it great for large residential applications as well. The Vista 20P can have up to two partitions so that you can create 2 unique areas in one site that are armed and disarmed separately. The Vista 20P has just about every kind of accessory you could need with a wide array of sensors, numerous means of communication, various expansion modules and keypads, and compatibility with great third-party equipment it is one of the most versatile systems on the market.

The Honeywell Vista 20P has a total capacity of 48 zones. It comes with 8 hardwired zones on the panel with the capability of doing zone doubling on zones 2 through 8 for a total 15 hardwired zones out of the box. We recommend using a 4219 zone expander or 4229 zone expander instead of zone doubling. We find that it is easier to install and troubleshoot with a zone expander than doing zone doubling, but it is available for you. And with 5 zone expanders you can have a total of up to 48 hardwired zones. With a 6160RF keypad or a 5881ENH wireless receiver zones 9-48 on the Vista 20P can be used for wireless as well giving the system up to 40 wireless zones. On top of that, a wireless receiver will provide dedicated zones for wireless key fobs like the 5834-4 four button wireless remote. The zones dedicated for that are 49-64. Each button on the key fobs will take up one of those zones. The panel can be programmed with 48 user codes, which can be very useful for settings in which many people need access to the alarm system.

The Vista 20P can have up to 8 keypads, 4 of which can be touchscreen keypads like the Tuxedo Touch or the 6280. The touchscreen keypads are a great addition to the system for their sleek looks and intuitive interface. They make the day to day operation of the alarm system much more user friendly. On top of the convenient interface, the Tuxedo has the added feature of a built-in Z-Wave controller to communicate with Z-Wave Devices that can be controlled locally at the keypad or on the LAN. With Total Connect it can be controlled from anywhere you have an internet connection. The Z-Wave controller in the Tuxedo cannot be used remotely with another service like Alarm.com.

The bell outputs on the panel have 2 amps of power available; enough to drive a very loud siren. One of our louder sirens, the SD30W, draws 1.2 amps and puts out a tone that is 120 decibels. That is about as loud as the front row of a rock concert. If you happen to need more power for your sirens, we do sell a power supply add-on kit. It comes with a PC5003c expansion cabinet, an Ademco 12612 power supply module for an additional 1.2 amp of power, a PTC1640 power transformer, and a BD412 backup battery. Also choose the Elk 912 relay to trigger the siren upon alarm. With this setup minus the Elk 912 relay, you can also power additional keypads, smoke detectors, motion detectors, or other powered items that may overload the auxiliary power on the main panel. The auxiliary power can provide 600 milliamps for those type of devices.

The Vista 20P is also compatible with numerous devices and services so that you can control it remotely. These services give you features such as ability to arm and disarm remotely, change user codes, and get notifications for alarm and other events. The exact set of features varies between services. There is Honeywell Total Connect of course. Total Connect requires a Honeywell IP or cellular communicator and central station monitoring. You can then choose the level of service from Total Connect from there. IPDatatel has some communicators, both IP and cellular such as the IP CAT CDMA, that are fully compatible with the Vista 20P. They can be used for self-monitoring only or also send the alarm signals to a central station as well. Eyez-on has made another great IP security interface for the Vista 20P called the EnvisaLink 4. The basic service on this device is free of charge other than the initial cost of the hardware and is great for self-monitoring. And the latest addition to the option for the Honeywell Vista series is the System Enhancement Module (SEM) from Alarm.com. Alarm.com is one of the most popular and feature rich smart home security platforms. The SEM allows Alarm.com to be backwards compatible with the Vista 20P with only a one major feature unavailable: image sensors. Alarm.com can also be used for self-monitoring, central station monitoring, or a combination of the two.

The Honeywell Vista 20P kits come with a keypad (different model for each kit), the Vista 20P panel, a cabinet, cabinet lock, power transformer, backup battery, user and installation manuals, Wave-2 siren, IS3035 motion detector, and RJ31X telephone jack and cord set. There are five different kits, each with a different keypad. The first is the 6160 keypad. It is a standard customizable alphanumeric keypad. The 6160 keypads are recommended for programming. From there, there are two other kits that come with 6160 style keypads: 6160RF and 6160V. These keypads are very similar to the regular 6160 with an added feature on each. The 6160RF comes with a built-in wireless receiver that will make the Vista 20P compatible with Honeywell’s 5800 wireless components. The 6160V adds voice annunciation on that keypad with a fixed vocabulary. Honeywell also has two kits that come with touchscreen style keypads: 6280 and Tuxedo Touch. The interface on both keypads is very similar. The biggest difference is that the Tuxedo has a built-in Z-Wave controller so that you can interface your alarm system with home automation equipment.