DSC PowerSeries Arming Methods & Shortcuts

Arming methods for the DSC NEO and DSC PowerSeries

This video showcases the different ways you can arm your DSC system. These methods work on both the DSC NEO (HS2016, HS2032, HS2064, HS2128) as well as the older DSC Power Series (PC1616, PC1832, PC1864)

Hey guys, Hayden here again from Alarm System Store, and today we're going to be going over the arming methods for the DSC PowerSeries and the PowerSeries NEO panels. There's four main arming methods and there are a couple quick shortcuts that I'm going to show you also. If you know what you're looking for, you're looking for a specific arming method, check down in the description, we're going to put timestamps down there so that you can jump right to it in the video.

I got a table over here set up with a NEO system, two-door contacts, and two motions and I'll show you how all of them work. All right, guys, so these first two modes I'm going to show you are for arm away and arm stay. These are the two most commonly used arming functions for any system. And arming away basically means nobody's going to be home so it arms all perimeter and interior sensors. Arm stay is for when somebody's going to be home and you still want your perimeter sensors set, but you'd like the interior turned off so that people can move around the house without setting off the alarm.

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So, here we are at the table, we got our NEO keypad set up and we got four sensors set out and you'll see they're labeled here. This is your delay door, this is an instant door, this is an interior stay away motion, and that is a night zone motion. So, what I'm going to do is show you how all of these different sensors interact with the different arming methods we've discussed. You're gonna see some jumping around while I'm trying to arm the system just because I don't want you to sit through all the delay times and all that.

So, for this first mode, we're gonna do away arming. And to arm in away, you're either gonna want to hold the function key for away, or type in your master code which ours is default 1234 and then open that delay door and close it again. And that'll tell the system that you want to arm in away mode because somebody left while the system was arming. So, we'll just do the master code way, type it in, it says bypass active because it's thinking it's going to go into stay mode.

Once we open this delay door and close it again, the system will arm an away and I'm gonna jump to the end. So, now the system is armed and it's armed in away mode. And what that means is every one of these sensors are active. All your perimeter sensors and all your interior sensors are gonna be activated. So, it doesn't matter which one of these we press or trip, it's gonna set off an alarm, and zone 12 is the night zone. If we go for the instant door, it'll add that to the amount of open zones showing you that your system is in alarm.

So, now let's clear this off. And what we're going to do is arm in stay mode. And basically, this is armed the exact same way, except for in stay mode you don't trip the delay door. And if you hold the function key for stay, then it actually silences the arming. So, we'll try it here. And see, there's no beeping letting you know that it is arming. As long as we don't open a delay door or set off any of the delayed sensors, then it's going to arm in stay mode.

And so, now we're armed in stay mode and what this has done is it's armed your perimeter sensors such as your door sensors here, but the interior motions in the night zone motions are going to be bypassed. So, we can mess with these as much as we want or walk in front of them and it's not going to set off the alarm. But as soon as we trip one of these doors, if we do the delay door, it's going to give us our delay timer. If we do the instant door, it's going to set off the alarm immediately.

I'll clear that. And that's basically the difference between your armed away and armed stay functions. So, this next mode I'm going to show you is called arming in night mode. What this means is that it's basically the stay feature but it also allows you to arm your interior sensors as well. There is a night zone definition for your zones, so if there's a certain motion that you have to walk past to get to your bedroom per se, you can set that up in night mode so that that motion isn't on but the rest of the interior sensors will be.

Now for night arming, this is a mode that you can activate after your system has been set up in stay arm. There is a way to set up a function key so that it automatically goes to night mode, but for the purposes of this video, we're just gonna show you the simple way to activate it from stay arm. So, first I'm gonna activate our stay arm. So, now that we're in stay mode, we're gonna hit star one or star, star and the interior has been armed, that means night mode is now activated.

It does take about 30 seconds for your motions to come on after you do this. So, now that we're in night mode, what it's done is it's activated your interior sensors. So, this motion is now activated even though it's in stay mode. This night zone though will still be bypassed. So, if I mess with this one, it's not gonna set off the alarm because it's bypassed, but if I trip this motion, then it's gonna set off the alarm. And basically, that's just a way to arm certain sensors inside of your home after you've armed in stay mode.

So, this last main arming method that I'm going to show you is called stay with no entry. And what this does is it takes away all the entry times for any delayed doors you may have set up. So, let's say your front door has a delay on it but you want it to go off instantly if it's opened, you can arm with stay with no entry and as soon as that door is open, there won't be the entry time period where somebody can get in and do whatever damage, it's going to immediately set off the alarm.

Now that we've covered away, stay, and night mode, we're going to cover another mode for the stay feature and that is called stay with no entry. And to activate this mode, what you're gonna wanna do is hit star nine on your keypad, and then you'll have to enter your access code or your master code, it says armed with no delay. And so, this is bypassing int stay so your motions are still gonna be bypassed, but what it's gonna do is it's gonna take the delay off of that first delay door.

So, I'll skip to when it's armed and then I'll show you the difference. So, now that we're armed in stay mode with the no entry feature, your motions are still gonna be bypassed, but it's taken away the delay on this door. So, as soon as I open any delay door and stay with no entry, it's going to set off the alarm just as if it were an instant door. It's now that we've cleared that. You can also when in stay with no entry, you can activate your night mode from there.

So, we're gonna enter our stay with no entry, and then once this is done, I'm going to hit star one and it's going to activate night mode. So, now we're armed in no entry stay mode and we've taken away the delay on this first door and I'm going to hit star one and arm the interior for night mode. So, these last two things I'm going to show you are quick arm and quick exit, and these are just little shortcuts.

Quick arm lets you hit star zero and it starts arming your system without having to type in your master code or, you know, hold a function button down. You cannot disarm this way, but you can quickly arm the system if you're in a hurry on the way out of the house. And quick exit, if your system's already armed and you're like in armed stay and somebody needs to leave, you hit star zero, and what it's gonna do is it's gonna give you two minutes to open and close the delay door.

As soon as that delay door is closed again, it will go back to being fully armed but it does give you a two-minute grace period where you don't have to disarm the systems to exit the house. These have to be enabled in your programming menu and we'll go ahead and do that real quick so I can show you where it's at. So, hit star eight and then your installer code, and you're going to go to section 015. And then you'll scroll over a couple times and quick exit, needs to be yes, and quick arming needs to be on as well, and we'll back out.

And what this allows you to do is without having to enter your code or hold a function button, you can just hit star zero to arm your system and that activates the exit delay. You still have to use your master code to disarm. There's no quick disarm, but you can quickly arm the system if you're in a hurry. For the quick exit function, it's going to be the same button presses as the quick arming, it's going to be star zero, but you'll see the system's already armed and basically hit star zero and then it gives you two minutes to exit the premises through a delay door.

So, I can open this door for the next two minutes and as soon as I close it again, it will reactivate the alarm. So, if I open this door again, it's going to activate the entry delay to disarm the system. And that's all there is to arming your PowerSeries and PowerSeries NEO panels. If you'd like to see similar videos to this, there's a little I you can click up there, and please like and subscribe, it helps us make more tutorial videos for do-it-yourselfers out there.

And please, leave us a comment, I mean, let us know how we did or, you know, suggest a new topic so that we can cover it for you. All right, I'm Hayden from Alarm System Store. I'll catch you on the next one.