Why does nobody mention how much phone support has gone downhill for alarm panels?

I’ve been installing alarms for about 12 years now, mostly in the Houston area. I remember 5 years ago when you could call tech support for a DSC panel and get someone who actually knew the wiring diagrams without putting you on hold for 20 minutes. Now it’s like they outsource to folks reading from a script. Had a 1832 panel that wouldn’t take a programming download last Tuesday, spent 3 hours on the phone with three different reps who all told me to reboot it. Finally figured out it was a firmware mismatch myself. Am I the only one seeing this change, or are y’all dealing with this too?

3 comments

3 Comments

gray616d ago

Hit the nail on the head. I had a Vista 21ip acting flaky last month, first guy tried to tell me it was a ground fault. Yeah sure, that's why the keypad shows "Open" on zone 3, buddy. Took me 30 seconds to find a bad sensor wire after I hung up. They don't teach troubleshooting anymore, just read off the same bullet points no matter what you describe.

rowanellis16d ago

Hold on, is a single bad sensor wire really worth getting this worked up over? I mean, it's annoying sure, but it's not like the guy was completely off base with a ground fault check.

alice_kim16d agoTop Commenter

Funny you mention that, had almost the same thing happen with my old 2GIG system. The keypad was just flashing "system trouble" and the first tech I called spent 20 minutes walking me through checking the transformer voltage. I finally got fed up, climbed up in the attic myself, and found a mouse had chewed through the wire on my back door sensor. Took less time to fix than the phone call wasted. Some of these guys get so locked into their troubleshooting flowcharts they forget the simplest things like bad sensor wires are way more common than actual AC ground faults.