Upgrading The Qolsys IQ Panel 4 With Intrusion Detection And Smoke Sensors.

Upgrading The Qolsys IQ Panel 4 – Recently I realised the Qolsys IQ Panel 4 I’d installed 2021 needed some expansion. We had no smoke sensors linked to the system – they were ancient Quell standalone units – and there was no external perimeter detection, while motion sensing was limited to ground floor.

After a chat with Stanley El Komala at BGW Technologies, a box arrived at the SEN office which included a DSC Power-G external curtain sensor, a DSC Power-G internal curtain sensor and 3 Power-G heat and smoke sensors.

Given this system is installed in a terrace house, testing the 2000 metre range of the Power-G curtain was not going to be possible without walking the sensor down to the fish markets. Meanwhile, the internal PIR and the 3 smokies were all going to be within 10 metres of the desk-mounted hub.

We like the Qolsys IQ 4 and highly rate the Alarm.com app we use to drive our small group of sensors and cameras. Though all our existing sensors – 2 intrusion detection sensors and 2 reeds — are installed internally, it’s impressive that we’ve never had a false alarm from this system, particularly from the kitchen sensor, which experiences strong thermal variations in summer.

Features

Features we always appreciate with the system include its ability to deactivate by geolocation — that reassuring notification bleep as you pull up never gets tiring. Also pleasing is the holistic nature of its Alarm.com app home screen, which gives the surety of site-wide movement assessment with a glance. Flawless reliability is key, too.

Our expansion involves installing smoke sensors to 3 levels, an internal curtain sensor on the second-floor landing and external curtain sensor outside. The internal curtain has a north-west facing window, but not in its angle of view – it’s more about covering movement anywhere upstairs should someone climb in through a top window or over the front balcony.

In this application, the external curtain sensor has the most work to do. The plan is that this sensor will cover movement at 2 vulnerable door entries, across 2 windows, one external gate and one carport door. I’m a messy gardener with a love of Rooster Booster – nothing dies, but it’s rarely pruned, so there’s plenty of moving foliage in the sweltering north-west facing courtyard.

“enrol the smoke sensors before powering them up…”

When you’ve not hopped into the back end of your alarm panel for a while – years in my case – there’s a certain sense of trepidation. These are wireless sensors, however, so the process is never going to mirror the anguish of those old-fashioned Impassa code books.

Once I remembered to pull down the settings window in the home screen – it’s been years, remember – going through the upgrade process became simple. The hardest part of all this was clearing the kitchen sideboard of glitter glue, diamond art, and a museum-grade feather collection during setup.

Once all this guff was bunged on the floor – sorry Evie – some thought went into siting those internal and external motion sensors and then I got stuck into enrolling the sensors.

Expert Advice

BGW Technologies’ Stanley El Komala had provided me with instructions and a heap of valuable documentation but faced with opening multiple PDFs I decided to wing it, holding in my mind one piece of Stanley’s sage advice – “enrol the smoke sensors before powering them up John, or make a hash of it you will”.

Having gotten myself into settings and then into advanced settings, I entered my installer code, then hopped into installation, then devices, then add devices. As part of the process there’s the option of using a QR code – I opted for this short-cut with the smokies.

With the 2 curtain sensors, however, hitting add device and powering up the sensor led to near instant device identification and enrolment, and I simply edited the name in the sensor list.

The first sensor enrolled was the Power-G Wireless Curtain PIR sensor, with its 7-year battery life. It’s a compact sensor with range selectable between 2–5 metres, making it ideal for the small landing at my place. It’s situated at the confluence of 2 flights of stairs, one external balcony from a front bedroom, and a rear bedroom with a window I tend to leave open.

Device Enrolment & Upgrading the Qolsys IQ Panel 4

I enrolled the Power-G Wireless Outdoor Curtain PIR next. This IP55 sensor has a range of 8 metres, is designed to handle harsh environments, is immune to the war dance of an 18kg groodle defending its gate, and features DSC’s Advanced True Motion Recognition algorithm. This latter allows the sensor to differentiate between intruders and other disturbances prior to triggering an alarm event.

This detector has a temperature sensor, which is a feature I like, as well as anti-masking technology. The Power-G wireless curtain is not a small sensor at 145 mm x 71 mm x 62 mm and a weight of 280g, but it’s much more discreet than many other boxy external sensors. Importantly for my application, it has a maximum operating temperature of 60C.

Enrolling this sensor was the same process – add sensor then power up, and the sensor appears in the list, rename it to suit the wireless zone in my application and job done. There are some additional features and tweaks with the DSC external curtain, but I’m leaving that fun stuff for another day.  

After getting the 2 motion sensors into the system, it was time to add the smokies and with Stanley’s advice in my mind, I waggled the QR code in front of the hub camera. It was either my technique or the small size of the QR codes on the box stickers, but I found I needed to photograph the QRs with my phone and upsize them to get a reliable read.

The 3 Power-G Wireless Photoelectric Smoke and Heat sensors activate in the presence of smoke or heat above 57C, and feature an integrated 85dB audible alarm, as well as alerts for tamper and low battery.

With all 3 smoke sensors in the system – I must admit one of these sensors self-enrolled when I put the batteries in before registering the QR code (I think it’s on level 3 but need to trip tamper and check at the hub to be certain) – it was time to get stuck into the physical installation process.

This was easy enough with the smoke sensors, which I located in the same footprint as the sensors they replaced. Plasterboard never fails to disappoint as a fixing substrate, and it didn’t fail this time, either. Ultimately, I got a good-ish grip in each location. Checking at the hub, the signal was reported as being strong for all 3 smoke and heat sensors.

Next came the internal curtain PIR. I spent a lot of unnecessary time trying to decide which way the Mission Impossible team was going to break into my house. After a reality check, I installed the sensor at right angles across the obvious route at a height that somewhat covered the open upper staircase, given there are multiple sensors keeping watch downstairs.

The Power-G Wireless Outdoor Curtain was the final device installed and even having screwed it to the wall I’m not sure if it’s in the perfect place. Faced with the 8-metre range of the sensor, the interference of foliage and the dichotomy of covering a gate, 2 house entries and 2 windows as one priority, and a carport door as the second priority, I covered one house entry, 2 windows and pointed the sensor through a thicket of shrubs towards the carport in vain hope.

Given the inherent challenges, it’s fair to say that this sensor is going to lead a wandering life, depending on what I’m trying to keep an eye on in the moment. That’s the beauty of wireless sensors, after all. You really can move them around any time you like, especially when they’re as robust and have as long a wireless range as this Power-G curtain does.

Furthermore, if in 12 months SEN reports zero false alarms from the PowerG external curtain – so far it has handled the conditions flawlessly – you can bet this sensor rocks. Our application is going to feature drenching rain, blazing sun, a wild dog and relentless thermal provocation from wind-blown shrubs.

Conclusion

In terms of challenges, there were none. The process of upgrading the robust Qolsys IQ Panel 4 was easy to manage from a cold start via the intuitive hub operating system. Once I’d finished with the tools, I ran a system check via the hub and everything worked perfectly. Checking in the Alarm.com app, the new sensors appeared there, too. Later, the system armed like a dream.

For more information on Qolsys IQ Panel 4 contact BGW Technologies here, there’s a full review of IQ Panel 4 here, or you can read more SEN news here.

“Upgrading The Qolsys IQ Panel 4 With Intrusion Detection And Smoke Sensors.”

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