Get Creative With Multi-Trigger PGMs On The IQ Pro!

Hey, guys. Hayden here again from Alarm System store. And today I thought I'd do a quick little demo on a neat feature regarding the IQ Pro and its PGMs. So, only IQ Pro PGMs have the ability to have multiple triggers, whereas previous iterations of the DSC systems have all the PGMs basically just have one trigger. While they might have some options within that, you know, main trigger type, it is only one trigger than activate each PM. But for the IQ Pro, however, you can have multiple triggers set up for the same PGM. So what I decided to do is get a little strobe here. I've connected it to PGM2. Just so you guys have some sort of visual indication, you know, for these PG PMS going off. So what we're going to do is basically just set up a couple zones so that whenever either one of those is open, it turns on this strobe.

And you can kind of apply this to your own, you know, personal desires. This is just, you know, what I thought up as an example for you guys. And now, if you're looking for basic PGM knowledge, I did do another video basically explaining how the PGMs are set up on the IQ Pro, so I'll link that down below so you guys can check it out. But for this specific video, like I said, just going to do a quick demo using the strobe. And the main thing you need to keep in mind is if you are going to use a powered device, such as a strobe, like I am here, any time you're wanting to connect it to a PGM, you have to pay attention to what the current draw of the device is. So this is one of the strobes we carry on our site. It draws about 120 milliamps, I believe. So this would not work on PGM one, 3 or 4 on the main board of the IQ Pro. I have it connected to PGM2, which is the only one of the four that provides enough power for this. So if you decide to do something, you know, utilizing those PGMs besides just smoke detectors or, you know, the basic stuff. Just keep that in mind. Pay attention to the power draw of your device and make sure you have a PGM applicable to power it. 

If you need other high-current PGMs, you can get the HSM2204 Power supply high-current output board for the IQ Pro, and that gives you 4 additional PGMs, which are high current. One is a secondary bell circuit, so up to one amp of output, and the other three can provide 500 milliamps. So we can actually run a couple of these strobes if you wanted to.

 Anyway, going on to how you would set this up. Basically, we're just going to go in and set up the PGMs like I did in my previous video. However, instead of just setting up one trigger for each PGM, we're going to basically just set it up so that both of these zones that I have set up are going to set off that strobe. So you go to your PGMs, and then for this, we're going to select a zone, and I have one labeled front door. The other one was labeled smoke; I just didn't change the name. But we're going to make sure front door is selected there. And then we do have to plug in a name. So we're just going to name this strobe. So that is one trigger. So the front door is set. So now we're going to set up the other zone. And like I said, it is named smoke. But it's not actually a smoke detector. It's just an instant zone. But now we've saved both rules. So we have on to the strobe rule. And it has zones one and two applied to it basically. So now if I go over to the system and I disconnect zone one, our strobe is going to go off. And you can see. The front door is selected there. Now if I close that zone. And then I open the second one. We get the strobe going off as well. 

So what you can do is kind of apply this to, you know, whatever situation you might want to set up for your, you know, system. You could use LEDs for different, you know, arming modes, things like that. There are also, if you wanted to, you could use system states, such as like the system being an alarm or a flood emergency seal emergency, things like that. So you can kind of take this concept and apply it to a lot of different scenarios that allow you to, you know, set up either like visual indicators for yourself, or you can use a peizo low current siren. So another example I thought of, I didn't want to use a sounder for this because they're a little bit obnoxious on video. But if you have like a pool area where you live and you have some kids running around the house, but you don't want them out playing around the pool whenever you're not aware of it, if you have a couple of doors that lead out to the pool area, you could set it up so that when those doors are triggered, when either one of those is opened, it basically sets that off.

And now that is going to apply as long as you leave those PGM rules active. So keep in mind that something like that you might need to turn on and off manually each time, you know, the kids come over or whatever the case might be. But the IQ Pro makes that pretty simple. Because it takes only a couple minutes to get your, you know, phone connected to the system and basically go in and plug these in, it makes it a little bit more, you know, interactive, where you have to physically go in and change programming each time you want to do something like that.

But the IQ Pro has made entering and exiting programming, changing things, very simple. So it's a lot more feasible for homeowners, especially, you know, DIYers, to basically program on the fly now, whereas, you know, before you'd have to go in through your keypad, figure out the section, like read the, you know, 400-page reference manual and all that. With the IQ Pro and its super-simple interface. Basically, once you get used to it, you can come in here and in five minutes you can set up multiple zones, you can set up multiple PGMs, whatever the case. 

But anyway, I just thought that was a neat feature of the IQ Pro, and its PGMs. So it's not groundbreaking by any means. However, it does have quite a few use cases. Just get creative with it, you know, come up with your own system customizations and, you know, make sure your alarm system is operating for you the way that you want it to. A lot of times, what we see is, you know, people get stuck with what an installer gives them. And it's generally the bare basics. You know, you have your door coverage, your motions, whatever, but the system doesn't do anything for you. And these systems are capable of a lot more, as you can see. And if you spend some time getting to know how your system works, get the installer code for it if you need. If need be, you can go in here and kind of set up and customize your house and your alarm system to be more beneficial than just triggering a loud siren whenever the alarm goes off. 

So anyway, that's going to do it for me. Hopefully, you guys learned a little something. Maybe spark some ideas in here. If you guys have ideas that other people might want to utilize, leave them down in the comments. You know, tell us some neat things that you guys come up with. But otherwise that's going to do it for me. So I will catch you guys on the next one.