Alarm Keypads Are Confusing!

A typical alarm keypad has a lot of buttons.  It can be very intimidating, especially since there's a tendency to constantly worry about accidentally setting it off.  After all, when it gets set off, the authorities are supposed to immediately jump into action to save you!  In reality, if the alarm only goes off for a few seconds, the most you'll get is a call from the security company to make sure that it was you that accidentally set it off.  But that doesn't really make the entire pad any less daunting!

Probably the easiest thing to understand on the entire keypad has the most buttons.  The number pad (and probably the "set" or "arm" button near it) is pretty straight forward.  You put in your code and hit the arm button to turn it off or turn it on.   Ok, well, that's not completely straightforward... why would you hit the "arm" button to turn it off?  Well, mainly because they didn't want to put yet ANOTHER button specifically for off on there... it's complicated enough, isn't it?

Well, it depends on what kind of keypad you have exactly, but here are some common ones!

Sometimes these are just status indicators, but sometimes they are meant to be pushed so that you can get a readout of a particular status on the screen above.  You might need to read your user manual (I know, I know... it's pure evil) in order to understand what the system is trying to tell you.

Well, this one should be relatively easy to understand.  It's a button that will automatically contact whatever monitoring service you are using, and it should result in immediately talking to a person on the other line.  They will ask you what's wrong, and you'll tell them.  Just don't be mean and bother the person trying to do their job on the other side by pressing the button when there isn't actually anything wrong...

Many security systems have "zones" that can be turned off or on independently of each other.  That's what these buttons are for.  How do you use them?  Well, I'm afraid it varies from system to system.  It's time to go back to that evil user's manual, unfortunately.  Be careful!  That manual wants to steal your soul!

If you would like to know more about keypads and how to use them, visit this page about Keypad Security Systems!  The same site has lots of information about lots of home security stuff if you're willing to look around a bit.