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Hi DIYers! Sterling from Alarm Grid here. Today we're going to show you how
to set up your duress code for your LYNX Touch L5100 wireless security
system. Your duress code is a special user code, and any Honeywell security
system has the duress as a feature. In fact, most security systems have
duress as a feature.
The duress code is designed to protect you for a home invasion or a break-
in as you're entering the home. So, worst-case scenario, you're coming home
from a long day of work, and a guy jumps out from the bushes as you're
opening your door. He tells you to disarm your system, no funny stuff. What
you do is you enter your duress code, the system disarms, no alarm is
tripped, the criminal thinks that he's beat the system and that no one is
going to be responding. However, the duress code, while it disarms the
system normally, actually sends a special alarm to the central station so
that the operator knows, do not call the house, because that would defeat
the whole purpose. Instead, send out the police right away. That way, you
get your emergency response, and everything is okay.
So obviously, we hope that you never have to use your duress code, but we
do hope that you assign it, so if that worst-case scenario happens, you'll
be protected. We're going to show you how to set it. What you do is, from
the Home Screen you hit more and then tools. Then you're going to want to
enter your master code, not your installer code. We have ours set to the
default, 1-2-3-4. Now we're in the Master Programming section, and you go
into users. The duress, as I said, is a special user code, it's actually
assigned to user code slot 16. If you toggle duress, then hit edit, you
can see the name is set to duress, and it's programmed to slot 16, which is
hard-coded to act as a duress code. Toggle into User Code.
I always recommend that when you're setting a duress code, you set it to
something you'll remember during that high-stress situation, where you've
got a criminal telling you what to do. Some very common duress codes are 2-
5-8-0, right down the middle of the keypad, or 1-3-9-7, around the four
corners. You can use any code you would like that's not also a valid user
code already programmed, but again, make sure it's something that you'll
remember in that situation. So, we're going to set ours to 2-5-8-0, right
down the middle. Make sure you click Done, and then, save, and then back
out. We have already put our system on test, so that we can demonstrate the
duress without actually getting the police out here. What we're going to do
is arm the system, and while we wait for this countdown, I'll describe a
little bit more about the duress. Again, it's just going to act as a valid
disarm. The system will turn off as if we used our normal code. Then that
special duress signal, a special type of alarm, is sent to the central
station. The operator knows not to call to verify anything. They're just
going to simply send out the police.
As soon as our system is fully armed, we're going to simply do the disarm,
use the 2-5-8-0 code to show you how the system simply disarms. You know
you'll be protected during one of those kinds of break-ins. We have our
exit delay set to our 60 seconds, so we have 15 seconds more. Once the
system is fully armed, we will show you the disarm. Five more seconds. The
system will switch from armed/away, exit now to just straight-up
armed/away. So now, we walk into our house, the criminal jumps in behind
us, startles us, tells us to disarm. We can click to disarm, and we
remember that 2-5-8-0 duress. Ready-to-arm chime, as if we had used the
code. The criminal thinks that everything is OK. Meanwhile, the police are
on their way.
This is a great security feature to protect your family. We do suggest that
you set up a duress code, but make sure that you know the code and that
everyone in the house knows not to use that code unless they need to. We
want to eliminate false alarms, because there will be no verification calls
from the central station, so make sure you're only using the duress in
those emergency situations. If you have any questions on using or setting
up your duress code, please leave us a comment in the section below. Make
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videos that we post.