Vent: spent $400 on a smart alarm panel and it died in 6 months

I bought a top of the line smart alarm panel thinking it would save me time on installs. It worked great for about 4 months, then started glitching. After 6 months it just bricked completely. No response from the manufacturer about a warranty replacement either. I lost that $400 and had to eat the cost of swapping it out for a basic wired panel. Has anyone else had issues with these fancy digital panels failing after a few months?

2 comments

2 Comments

williamb2919h agoMost Upvoted

Man that sucks, I ran into the same thing with a fancy touchscreen thermostat I tried last year. After it died I switched back to a dumb wired one with a simple keypad and it's been rock solid for over a year now. Sometimes the basic stuff just lasts longer because there's less to break. Did you try asking your supplier if they had a different brand they trusted for those setups?

grantf7317h ago

I switched back to a basic wired panel after my second smart one died. The cheap keypad model from the hardware store has been going for 3 years now with zero issues. Less to go wrong when it's just a simple circuit and some buttons. I also stopped trusting Wi-Fi for security stuff after having connection problems mid-install. Sucks to eat the cost but sometimes the old-school solution is actually the better one.