I have a SmartThings ADT Home Security kit, and today my ISP had an outage for a few hours. I’m subscribed to live monitoring. I noticed the following during and after my Internet was down:
While the Internet was out, I received an automated call from ADT that my base station lost connectivity. Isn’t this system supposed to connect via cellular in the event that my Internet is down? Do I need to configure anything on the panel to failover to cellular - can I make cellular the primary means of connectivity?
While the Internet was out, I set the alarm to armed/away via the panel, then left the house. Internet connectivity was restored, and my SmartThings hub came back online. I went into the app, and in the home security dashboard, it’s showing as my home was unarmed. I refreshed, exit the app, and logged in and out, but it still showed unarmed. I tried re-arming it as either arm/stay or arm/away - and it looks like it’s trying to arm, then falls back to the original unarmed status. I confirmed that my system was armed because my cat triggered the motion sensor, and ADT called to confirm. I’m having the same problem from multiple phones (one iPhone, one Android), and I’ve tried logging out and back into the app again to see if it helps with re-arming via the app, but no luck.
Unrelated to issues regarding the Internet outage - is there an option to decrease the sensitivity of the motion sensor? I have an 8 lb cat, and she seems to trigger the motion sensor, which is a 7’ height. I re-positioned the sensor so it’s not aimed directly at the ground, but not making much of a difference. I wasn’t having this problem with an old-school GE motion sensor I use to have with Monitronics.
There is no way to make cellular as primary. If you got an automated call from ADT, then something was working correctly…or not. The LTE cellular backup will immediately take over for continuous service of alarm and life safety event notifications to ADT Monitoring Services. See if your radio module is registered: Go into the panel settings (bottom right corner panel screen) > Enter PIN > Cellular Radio Swap > Test radio (not the swap). You should get something like:
Signal Strength -14/6
Registration Status: Registered
Connection Status: Ready
Power Status: Off
Sim Status: Not Locked
Radio Frequency: Auto
the power only powers when needed. If the module is not registered and connection status is not ready, then there is an issue with your cellular module or it was not registered properly.
If your internet is out, you won’t be able to connect to your panel from your app. It may not have reconnected to your wifi when internet resumed. Did the app show the panel was back “online”? You might try rebooting your panel. You can do so by uplugging the panel and the panel battery, then reconnecting. Or, you can do so going to the web-based application through https://graph.api.smartthings.com/.
Sometimes Samsung’s servers are down and the app doesn’t work.
there is no sensitivity switch on the motion sensor. It should be mounted 6.5’-7.5’ above the floor. If it is still giving you issues, you could use the wall mount bracket to angle upward slightly; or, you can install upside down, but at 4-5’ above the ground. The Fresnel lens (that plastic thing) when the sensor is mounted upside down will then have a parallel to the floor field of view, whereas if mounted right side up, it has a slight downward angle field of view. Ensure that anything cat likes to climb on isn’t within the 120 degree field of view.