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Visonic PowerMaster-30 G2 with GSM

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dxcharles:
Disclaimer: Early thoughts after less than a week of ownership.

I’m writing this quick review since I could not find very much online about this system. I’m a newbie and wanted to setup a security system at my home and had almost decided on the Visonic PowerMax Pro when I learned that they had announced a newer system, namely the PowerMaster-10 and 30. I could not find this system at the standard places like the homesecuritystore.com, safemart etc. and pretty much nothing online except that it had won a recent security award (IFSEC 2012). I e-mailed Visonic to inquire about the availability and their rep responded: “The PowerMASTER10 & 30 controls are available in N. America for the professional alarm trade,” he didn’t indicate when the system would be more generally available. In any case, I didn’t want to give up since the PowerMaster reportedly has much better wireless connectivity than the PowerMax and would be better suited for my house (it’s a long rambler style house). I found some stores in UK that carry the PowerMaster but didn’t want to buy from overseas. Finally, after a few days of searching I found an Amazon retailer who had listed the system on their site (JMAC supply), though it wasn’t part of their amazon listings. I knew nothing of this retailer, but they seemed to have good reviews at Amazon. I called them up to confirm that it was indeed the correct item and not an erroneous listing.

After I got the confirmation I went ahead and placed an order for the PowerMaster 3-1-1 kit (contents: PowerMaster 30 base station, power supply, 3 contact sensors, wireless keypad KP-140PG2, 3 chicklet style proximity tags + mounting hardware and batteries), the GSM module (GSM-350 PG2), a wireless keyfob (KF-234 PG2), a glassbreak detector (GB-501 PG2), an extra PIR motion sensor (PowerG Next PG2) and a wireless outdoor siren (SR-730 PG2). Of these, I am yet to receive the outdoor siren but all the others arrived a week ago and I was able to setup the system in a matter of hours. I was thoroughly impressed with the customer service from this small unknown (to me at least) place, to save time they had ordered the equipment from Visonic and asked Visonic to ship directly to me.

I was pleasantly surprised with the ease of the setup (this is perhaps the same with other Visonic equipment). To begin with I installed the GSM module and the SIM card followed by the battery and the (straightforward) power connector. Once you power up the system you are asked to change the installer master codes and then proceed with the device enrollment. The detectors in the kit were pre-enrolled to the base station, in any case I deleted all the devices and re-started the enrollment. I had to press the tamper switch inside these devices to get them to enroll and entered the ID in the base station, then had to assign them to their location (hall/kitchen/dining room etc.) and zone type (perimeter/entry & exit/interior etc.). [There is also voice prompting for all this, which I turned off.] Then there was the user code stuff, setting the GSM as the primary contact mode and the reporting selection. The chicklet style proximity tags have to be enrolled from the wireless keypad and not from the base station. The only remaining step was to mount the detectors in their chosen place. The base station shows you the signal strength to each device and it read “Strong” for every one of them, sweet! The cellular network reception was also reported as good, and test text messages arrived nicely to my phone. You can configure multiple phone numbers to receive notification and there is a separate section for professional monitoring vs. private monitoring. I’ve also tested triggering the alarm which at the moment only triggers the phone reporting and the base station siren (it is about 80db I think and is very loud close to the system, but may not be sufficient to alert neighbors so I’m looking forward to the outdoor siren).

So far I’m very pleased with the system (no false alarms) and hope anyone else trying this system out has the same painless experience. Keep in mind the short period of time I’ve had the system and if you take this route be prepared that you may not have any troubleshooting help from Visonic for the installation.

twisted:
Thanks for your post.  Yours is the first installation that I have seen with any details .  Please followup as you learn more about it.  Nice to hear you got good sales service.  I agree with your step of deleting the pre-enrolled devices.

FYI, the Next PG2 seems so similar to the 1way Next+ PIRs that I suspect it may be vulnerable to the same false-alarming from insects and windows.  That is why the Next CAM PG2 is an interesting way to confirm alarms by still pictures sent with the alarm.  I'm curious about what the pricing difference is.

Thanks for your post.

alpanian:
Thanks for one of the only reviews on the net! After being quite set on the powermax Pro, I am now tempted to go for the Powermaster10 or 30.

Particularly for two very usefull features: 1. Frequency band hopping. Where I live (Switzerland), burglars have been known to use scramblers for the standard frequency. 2. Power usage based on signal strength for extended battery life.

However, the big problem is I can't seem to find any outdoor detectors for powermaster G2. Seems all the accessories are for indoors. Third party makers such as optex don't have anything for this system yet as far as I can find.

Are you aware of any plans to increase the range? For the powermax Pro, I was going to get some optex outdoor PIR detectors to warn me "before" someone tries to come through my doors/windows.

Thanks!

twisted:
I would expect most devices in the PMPro line to be adapted in new model versions for the PowerMaster line.

I don't have any inside knowledge.

Scambling / Jamming is not really an extraordinary concern if you just treat (and configure for ) every scambling incident as a true alarm.  True, devices can fail and causing jamming but that is the price of vigilance, and it is rare anyway.

You can adapt any outdoor-rated detector with dry-contact output, to a PG contact sensor Visonic# MC-302E PG2 .  It's more work than a native device that doesn't exist yet, but do-able.

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