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Panel firmware updates: is 5 years the breaking point for reliability?
I used to update every panel firmware at install, but over the last 3 years I've seen two sites where a fresh update introduced false alarms that the older version never had. One customer in Phoenix had a DSC unit that was rock solid for 4 years, then an update made the motion sensor go off at 3am every night. Do you roll back to factory versions or just stick with whatever the manufacturer pushes out now?
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grantnelson21d ago
Ever had one of those calls where you just stare at the phone for a minute? My buddy runs a small shop up in Oregon, and he had a Honeywell panel at a church that ran perfect for like 6 years. Then the manufacturer pushed a mandatory firmware update through their monitoring contract, no way around it. Two weeks later the fire alarm starts going off randomly during Bible study, no smoke, no heat, nothing. He spent three weekends swapping sensors and checking wiring before he tried rolling the firmware back. That fixed it same day, and he's never updated a panel past the factory version since. He told me he'd rather drive five hours to fix a dead panel than deal with a phantom alarm call at 2am again. So yeah, I get why you're asking, and honestly the manufacturers are the last people I trust to test their own updates anymore.
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