Stay and Away arming Rules on the DSC PowerSeries NEO Alarm System

Hey, guys. Hayden here again from Alarm System Store. And today we're going to be talking about stay and away arming on the DSC neo alarm system. And this does apply to a lot of other systems as well, especially modern ones. But essentially we get asked quite a bit, you know, why want my system arm in stay mode. But I want to arm in a way mode. So on and so forth. and then is because of the coding on the system itself. all of these modern systems come with a lot of false alarm prevention programing, and essentially that's just set up to keep people from accidentally setting off their alarm. So, for example, you know, if you're trying to stay home for the night, but you accidentally arm in a way, somehow, then your motions are going to be active and it's going to set the alarm off. So they do this to prevent those false alarms or accidental alarms. And there's a few factors that go into this. So essentially the system watches to see whether or not somebody leaves during the arming period. And what it watches is a delay door, which is generally, like I said, a door. it could be a motion or some other sensor, but essentially you have an entry point into the house. And I always recommend the door because they are the quickest acting sensors. So that is what you want to catch. You know, you leaving or you entering, so on and so forth. The other factor is a motion or some other sensor that is meant to be bypassed. Whenever you are in stay mode, you have to have one of those set up as a stay away zone, and that tells the system that it can either arm in stay or away mode. If you don't have a stay or away zone, Then you won't be able to arm in stay mode, period. It'll just arm in a way all the time. Even if you're staying home. Essentially, away mode just means everything's active. Stay mode means that certain sensors are going to be bypassed, such as the motion.

So whenever you're arming the system, you're always going to have a countdown minimum of 45 seconds. But essentially during that countdown, the system watches this delay door or your entry point to see if somebody exits, essentially. So if you're arming and you don't touch this while you have a stay / away zone active, it's going to arm and stay mode because it doesn't think anybody left. And if you open this door during the exit countdown, it's going to tell the system, hey, somebody left. I can turn on all my centers. I can arm in away mode. Now. And that is essentially the gist of this whole process. So like I said, if you just have perimeter sensors and you don't have any stay slash away zone definitions plugged in, the system's always going to arm away. But if you do have a stay / away zone programed, then it will watch that entry point to see if somebody leaves or not. So I'm going to run through some scenarios here so you guys can see what I'm talking about and hopefully give a better visual of that. But essentially I'm going to move the camera over. We'll run through my little setup here, show you what I have these two set up as. And then from there I'll show you some examples of how the system performs. So I'll be right back.

So here in a second I'm going to start going over the different scenarios for different types of systems and you know setups that you can have. But before we do that I want to cover the different arming methods for arming from the keypad. Now touchscreens offer a slightly different approach to this, but essentially the concept is still the same. So even if you have a touchscreen, you can follow right along. Basically, you have three options. You can type in your code, and that's going to start the exit delay countdown when you once you do that, it's going to tell the system to start watching that delay door to see if it opens and closes, to see whether or not it needs to go into stay or away mode. Now you also have a stay and away function key over here on the right. Now, these don't change anything about the way that at arms, if you hold the stay button, that doesn't guarantee it's going to arm in stay mode. If you hold the away button, it doesn't guarantee the system's going to arm in a way mode. The coding determining whether or not the system arms and stay or away is still always present, even if you hit a specific button. The only difference about these buttons as compared to typing in your code is if you hold the stay key and use it, it is going to count down silently. You're going to get an initial beep, but it will not do the beep beep beep as it counts down to let you know that it's time to leave.

So from here we'll go into our scenarios. So the first scenario that we're going to cover is a system that does have motions or glass breaks or otherwise sensors that need to be bypassed while the system is armed and stay mode. So what's going to happen when I arm the system is it's going to warn me that there is a bypass active, because once you start arming, it is watching to see what needs to happen. So it's going to start watching this delay door. So if this door is not opened during the arming countdown, then it will arm and stay mode and it will bypass those sensors. The stay away sensors. If I do open it, however, and then I close it again, that tells the system, hey, somebody left, so now I can turn on my motions. Turn on my glass breaks, turn on my stay away zones. So I'm going to go ahead and arm it real quick. I'll show you what happens when you first arm it, what it says, and then I'll show you what it says after the fact.

So once you start arming, it is going to pop up and say warning bypass active. And that is letting you know that it is going to bypass those. Stay away zones because it still thinks everybody is in the house. So I'll be right back. When it's armed. So when it first armed it is going to tell you system armed in stay mode. It will always tell you whatever arming method it is in after it is armed. So now if we scroll to the right it is still going to say warning bypass active. And that is because it's telling you, hey, that motion or your stay away zones are bypassed currently. And as you can see, I set off that motion and it didn't trigger the system. If we keep scrolling, it's also going to say star one to arm interior. So it gives you the option if you want to arm that interior or which is the stay away zones, or if you're using night zones those also come into play here, but essentially you can arm the interior while you are home. So that really only applies to night arming, which we're not really going to cover. I covered that in another video, but essentially Night Arming allows you to choose certain sensors that will stay off even after you've turned on the interior. But essentially, after that, once it scrolled through those, it will just save the date and time until something happens, such as opening your delay door to start the countdown.

So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to arm the system, and as soon as I start arming it, I'm going to open and close that entry exit door. So 1234 arm it, warning bypass, active exit delay and progress. Now if I open this front door and close it, that tells the system, hey, somebody left the house. It's called arm and away mode. I can turn on all my sensors. So now if we scroll through, it doesn't show the bypass active anymore because it's no longer going to bypass those zones. And I'll be right back whenever this is finished. Arming. So we've armed and we are in away mode. As you can see their system armed in a way mode. Now, what that means is that motion is active. So if I trigger it again it is going to set off the alarm system. And as you'll see as I scroll, there are no other options. And that's because you shouldn't be in the house right now is basically what it's telling you. So if I trigger that motion. System, we'll go into alarm. Right now I have the keypad, alarm beeps turned off so you can't hear it, but essentially you can see it. Their systems in alarm and it's scrolling through whatever zone was triggered, some to which is the motion. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to set up the system so that it is basically just a perimeter coverage system where you don't have motions or glass breaks or whatever that need to be bypassed while you're in stay mode. And basically the system is always going to remain a mode. But to do that, we have to take away our interior stay away definition. So I'm going to do that real quick.

So essentially all I've done is turned off the motion detector. Basically there is no stay slash away zone present on the panel. So now if I arm it's just going to say exit delay in progress. There's no warning. Bypass is active because it's not going to bypass anything. The only thing it has to worry about is the perimeter which should always be armed, period. So whenever it's done, I'll be right back. So as you can see, it says system armed in away mode. There's no other options because everything's active, which is just going to be your instant windows and your delay door or entry exit doors. So now if I arm it and I do open that delay door, it's not going to do anything. It's basically going to stay the same setup. It's going to allow you to leave, do your thing, but it's still going to arm in a way mode. And that's basically just because it doesn't have to arm in stay mode for any reason whatsoever. It doesn't have to worry about any sensors that need to be bypassed. So I'm going to go ahead and disarm this. So that's pretty much it for away and stay arming. Like I said, there are other arming methods which were covered in another video. But essentially what we get asked about the most is the fact that systems will arm in, you know, a mode that isn't what people are trying to activate, especially in regards to the function keys here. But hopefully that clears things up. And if you have any more troubleshooting issues, check out our how to videos and alarm systems for.com where you can check our YouTube channel Alarm System store on YouTube if you could like and subscribe and I will catch you guys on the next one.