Bought a $600 cellular dialer that didn't work with the panel I had

I wasted $600 on a cellular dialer that was completely wrong for my alarm panel, all because I skipped reading the fine print on power specs. Ended up leaving the job site with half a day gone and a useless brick of plastic and wires. Has anyone else had a similar headache with aftermarket communicators?

2 comments

2 Comments

hayden70910d ago

Caught myself doing the EXACT same thing with a $500 LTE unit last year. Plugged it into a Honeywell Vista panel and it just blinked once before going totally dead. Tech support laughed when I told them what I connected it to, said I'd voided the warranty in about 2 seconds flat.

johnflores10d ago

Bro my buddy had almost the exact same thing happen last month. He bought one of those cheap LTE communicators off eBay and it straight up fried when he plugged it into his old Ademco panel. Turns out the wiring diagram in the manual was for a totally different voltage and he didn't double check it. He spent like an hour on the phone with tech support before they told him it wasn't compatible anyway. Ended up just tossing the thing in the trash and eating the cost.