Customer Reviews

Powermax + Wireless Security System

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have owned my Visonic Powermax system for a year and a half, and it has been stellar. In that time we have had one false alarm while we were at work that resulted in a visit from a police cruiser (25 minutes after the 911 call!). When the system notification came we knew that the alarm was set off by a motion detector in the living room, but no doors or windows were violated. I blame the cat, and I had set the sensor for maximum sensitivity. I put it back to normal, and have had no problems since.

Only real complaints have been that the setup can be confusing, and bypassing a zone can be a real PITA. When we go away and have a neighbor check on our dog it is simpler to disable the garage sensors than give them access to the whole house. The only way to do this is via the installer menu, which is very odd.

Despite what the previous reviewer said a wireless keypad is available, it is part number MCM 140. I consider this an essential, because mounting the panel near an entry door is asking for it to be destroyed very quickly should someone break in. The control panel should go in a closet near the center of the house, and you should run external sirens to it (disable the panel siren).

Many other accessories are available for the Powermax, including smoke detectors and breaking glass sensors. All are easily integrated into the system.

I highly recommend this alarm system, despite the odd programiing quirks.

The initial system is a good value at $200+ but future purchses of keyfobs and motion detector (in addition to the ones supplied) will set you back $50 to $80 a piece. The door window wireless contacts work well until the 3 year period when you have to change the batteries. Expect to pay a lot for those 3.6v lithium batteries which are different from the generic camera batteries you find everywhere. When you replace the batteries in the door/window transmitters expect at least one to malfunction and give you false alarms or "tamper violations". Why ? Poor construction by the folks who supply visonic resulting in the internal springs not making contact wtih the cover of the unit which causes the unit to send out false tamper alerts to your console. The wireless keyfob is flimsy and works ok till you change batteries after a year or two at which point the spring connecting to the internal battery in the keyfob popped out in mine and rather than buying an expense $60 keyfob replacement I had to go work on it with a soldering iron.

The dialer system in mine once caused 3 days of nonstop faulty dialing which ran up my metered phone line. Disconnecting the dialer is a bad idea as the system perpetually tries to monitor the phone line and gives you "line failure" messages. Programming the unit to not monitor the line doesn't work as advertised.

Wiring an internal horn is tricky since the ones supported by the visonic console are too tinny to be heard out side your home. If you want larger horns be ready to do some circuit design with battery packs etc.. to get a sturdy horn in place.

Visonic DOES NOT support end users directly and prefers that you go to the reseller who may/may-not want to support you 3 years later when you come back with product issues. On the plus side if you escalate your concerns to visonic their sales manager is genuinely helpful though even he can't make up for the poor construction of the door/window contacts.

On the whole a good value at $200+ and fun to program if you are a DIY type. Expect 3 years of trouble free use then be prepared for more expenses or chuck the system altogether. Then again when was the last time you retained electronics for a decade??

The Visonic Powermax is a wireless burglar alarm system, with some useful features for home automaters. There seem to be various opinions in the industry regarding wireless alarm systems. The old school of thought is that wireless devices are less reliable and less secure than a traditional hard wired system, they have also been very popular with the enthusiast weekend DIY'er as they are easier to install than a wired system. Whilst the cheap low end systems may fall into this unreliable/less secure category the Visonic PowerMax certainly does not...

The control panel itself is a fairly neat looking well deigned piece of kit - however I wish Visonic produced wireless keypads as well as the main unit, as a result the main unit must be installed fairly close to the entry/exit door (unless you are going to give everyone a key fob) It would have been better in my opinion if the main unit could have been hidden away somewhere and drone keypad located close to the entry/exit.

When my father was in the early stages of Alzheimer's, and "wandered" in the middle of the night in his pajamas and bare feet, we immediately sought out a security company to install alarms on the outside doors so that my mother could sleep soundly, knowing that she would be awakened if he wandered again. This is the system they installed. It is now over four years since we had it installed, and we have had absolutely no trouble with it. We have not had to replace any sensor batteries, and we have not used most of its other features. It alerted my mother at least two more times when my father attempted to leave the house in the middle of the night, and in that respect it more than paid for itself.

after 3 years of use, the problem begins, this alarm and all its detectors have batteries that nowhere to be found. it does not use a normal aa or aaa batteries, you can buy them but they are ridiculously expensive because it is hard to find.

I have had the Visonic PowerMax since 2003. For several years, the unit worked fine, although the initial set up was complex and confusing at first. The basic concept is generally excellent. In recent years though intermittent electronic failure that couldn't be fixed using the diagnostic procedures resulted in a periodic "beep" that was annoying to humans and pets. Eventually, I took the unit off the wall. That caused some concern because this caused a disruption in phone service that I had to figure out how to solve, not having worked with the unit for several years. The electronics look like a homemade RadioShack solder board and the casing is cheap plastic that breaks easily. However, cheap security linked to your cell phone, this is a pretty good idea. I wish it were made more durably though...