Home security systems are great ways to provide homeowners peace of mind when they’re away and especially after they go to bed for the night. There is, however, a challenge for security systems when designing a system for specific applications in a large home.
A homeowner might want to zone off specific areas – a pool area, for instance – so the sensor at the gate to the pool area is armed at all times, even when the rest of the home is disarmed. Or, homeowners may want to keep a garage zone unarmed and the rest of the home armed while away if they expect to receive a package delivery.
The recently announced v3.2 firmware release for 2GIG’s GC3 wireless security system, enables this sort of “partitioning” (the creation of zone groups in a home or building security system) so that users can arm some sections of the property while leaving other areas disarmed. The new Smart Areas functionality allows homeowners to arm or disarm up to four partitions independently.
Smart Areas Available Now
Called “Smart Areas” by 2GIG, the update is available immediately to installed systems via the new v3.2 firmware release, with no added hardware modules required.
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Each Smart Area partition controls its local zone status, alerts, and notifications, and offers the ability to bypass any zone within the partition.
“With Smart Areas, the GC3 becomes the first wireless self-contained partitioning panel in the marketplace, complete with a user interface, controller, wireless transceiver, and communicator all in one package,” explained NSC product director, Majid Mahmood, in a company press release.
Smart Areas partitioning also can be used to personalize security for multiple tenants in a building, with the main partition securing the common area while the remaining partitions secure the individual units. Any zone or zone grouping that needs to be armed or disarmed separately from the rest of the structure can be turned into a Smart Area partition.
“2GIG Smart Areas partitioning gives end-users the benefits of partitioning with a new, easy-to-use and intuitive interface, and gives installers a simple and fast set-up solution,” Mahmood added. “With the launch of Smart Areas, we’ve made peace of mind more achievable than ever before.”
Smart Areas is available now for USB download on the 2GIG dealer and soon via OTA from Alarm.com for existing and new GC3 systems. Visit www.2gig.com/smart-areas/ for more information.
