10 Messages
Two keypad questions
My gen 3 system has been installed for 3 months and has had no significant issues. I have experienced two keypad occurrences that have me baffled. One I have a theory as to what is happening and the second still has me scratching my head. Hopefully y'all can help.
1. Approximately 2 AM last night the keypad in the bedroom activated itself similar to when a hand is placed on the bottom. The upper display showed "Home" and the numbers lit. Both turned off after 5 seconds or so. This happened at least four times at random times over a five minute period. At the time there was no error displayed on the keypad nor in the Simplisafe app status or timeline. This morning the timeline showed a test at 1:57 AM. My assumption is that this is a normal daily occurrence and I just happened to notice it. Can someone verify or explain what is happening? I would like the peace of mind knowing nothing is failing.
2.The keypad near the door leading to the garage lit up when the garage door was opened ( one time). The keypad sequentially lit up off, home and away several times before settling on off. No error was displayed nor was anything error related shown in the app. Everything then functioned normally. Is this behavior normal and under what conditions does it occur? Again I just want to correct error conditions before they become a crisis.
Thanks for your time and feedback.
As a way of general feedback, my Simplisafe system replaced a 17 year old GE Concord hardwired alarm system monitored by Monitronics/Brinks. The Simplisafe system is technologically superior, more flexible and more powerful. Installation was easy peasy. Monitoring costs are significantly less than my old system. Every time I had a question and called Simplisafe a knowledgeable person promptly answered the phone and resoved my question promptly. Color me a satisfied customer.
coltmaster1
Advocate
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2.8K Messages
2 years ago
@rj31234
1. This is a known issue with SS3 - sometimes the keypad will light up for some odd reason (we've never really got a concise answer from SS). Some of us, however, have determined it might happen more often when it senses an abrupt temperature change (i.e., your furnace kicks on in the room, or, you have a ceiling fan in the room) - and SS has said on at least one occasion, it sort of acts like, or has, a motion sensor ability (heat sensing), so it might detect heat (although it seems to occur without abrupt heat, can occur when the keypad is near a tv that's on, or for no good reason at all, so users really don't know - an OTA update was supposed to fix it at one time, so check your keypad to see if you have a gear icon on the display, in which, that's letting you know there is an update available). To save battery power, you can go into your settings from your keypad and turn off the keypad power mode.
2. If you mean the top 3 buttons at the top of the keypad (Home, Off, Away), flashed white from left to right in succession a couple or three times, more than likely, it was having trouble communicating with the base station. Sometimes this occurs if you also get an error "keypad out of range", but if you did not get an error on the keypad display, check the batteries, and if they've been in use for quite awhile, change them.
That said, a few of us have been having weird behavior regarding # 2 above in recent weeks. Mine for example, will flash across Home/Off/Away in succession a few times, and sometimes it will reconnect (it is always in OFF mode when it does this, and it does it whenever I open one particular door). Other times, it will flash Home/Off/Away, and then produce an error "keypad out of range", which means I usually have to go and unplug the base station adapter from the wall outlet and plug it back in, then it will reconnect. Have brought this up with SS on the forum, but no solution (rep says possible interference with things like garage door opener, baby monitors, etc, but none of these things apply in my situation). Since there's no resolve, I'm waiting for a hopeful OTA new update that will correct it, but who knows. If you continue having the issue, call SS, maybe you'll get a different answer!
And yes, if you have the interactive monitoring plan, you should see in your timeline, at the same time every day (except for an hour difference for both daylight-savings-time changes), "test signal received".
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rj31234
10 Messages
2 years ago
Thank you for the prompt and detailed reply. Below I will add some additional details that will hopefully help you identify the root cause of both failures.
1. The temperature in the bedroom whose keypad spontaneously turned on and off was stable to 2 degrees over the preceeding 24 hours. There are no air vents blowing near the keypad. The turn on/off occurred at 2 AM and the timeline flagged the test at 1:57, an interesting coincidence? I will watch closely and report any other details I observe.
2. The reset of the keypad near the garage door coincided with opening the door. My overall system has exhibited stability with no timeline events other than arming/disarming and automated tests. The garage door is opened/closed a minimum of 2 to 3 times a day. The batteries are original equipment and show good status. The system o/s was updated about 4 weeks ago and is current. I will also monitor closely and report any details I observe.
Feel free to ask questions if I can help. As background I have 42 years experience in the computer industry (every phase).
Have a good evening.
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carlton76
30 Messages
2 years ago
I've been through several keypads and I think they all did the phantom-illumination thing. I think it happens more in dry weather which yields more carpet static - no real idea though. I've had other non-simplisafe devices in the past that had a misadjusted touch sensor and this seems like the same thing.
You can set the keypad to battery savings mode which will work around this bug but now you will have to tap a button to see the display. I use this mode with one of my nearby keypads but the ones out of view I don't worry about it.
(edited)
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davey_d
Community Admin
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4.8K Messages
2 years ago
Hi rj31234,
Yes, the Test Signal on a Gen 3 SimpliSafe system happens daily. It's just the system checking in with our servers to let us know that it's still active. So that part is totally normal.
As coltmaster mentioned, the Keypad features a proximity sensor, which works very similar to the standalone Motion Sensors - in that they're really triggered by sources of heat moving around in the room. When you noticed these occurrences, were you, or any other humans or pets nearby? If you can see the Keypads, they might also be able to see you!
Just in case you didn't know, you can go into the settings on your Keypad to toggle the Power Saver feature. The Keypad will no longer automatically light up when you're nearby, but it can still light up if you press any of the buttons.
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