Accurate Security technician showing an Ottawa homeowner their existing alarm panel

Already have a system?

Keep the panel. Add the app.

You do not need a new system to get off a phone line, and on most panels you do not need one to get an app either. A Resideo communicator goes on the panel you already own.

The question is not whether your panel has a phone line. It is whether it can also talk on a data bus. The alarm signals and the app travel separately, so a panel that can do both keeps everything and gains an app; a panel that can only dial keeps its monitoring and never gets one. Everything below follows from that.

What is on your wall?

Type the model, or tap the brand. The model is usually on a label on the keypad or inside the box. Whatever this says, we confirm it on your actual panel before anything is ordered — panels of the same name were built over twenty-odd years and a firmware version can change the answer.

Your panel — make or model

Not sure of the model? Tap the brand instead

The three ways this goes

	VISTA / First Alert talks ECP	DSC / Interlogix talks on a bus	Dialer only nothing else
What goes on	LTEM-PA	LTEM-PA	LTEM-PA + dialer capture
Installed, one time	$399	$399	$518
Phone line needed	No	No	No
The app	Yes — Total Connect 2.0	Yes — Total Connect 2.0	No
Arm and disarm from your phone	Yes	Yes	No
Two-way voice, if your panel has it	Kept	Kept	Lost
Changes later	Done remotely	Done remotely	A visit each time
Monitoring	$16.99/mo	$16.99/mo	$14.99/mo

Monthly is plus HST, and the first year is $12.99 on the app plans and $10.99 on monitoring alone. The three packages are here.

The dearest version of this job is the least capable one, and we would rather say that than have you find out in February. A dialer-only panel costs more to convert and gives you less, because the extra part is there to make up for something the panel cannot do. On an old system that is still perfectly good, it is often still the right call. On one that was already giving trouble, a new panel usually wins. We will give you both numbers.

The panels Resideo names, and the firmware each one needs

This is not our list. It is the compatibility table out of Resideo’s own datasheet for the communicator, and it is short and specific — the model is half the answer and the firmware version is the other half. The datasheet is here if you want to read it yourself.

Panel	What it needs
VISTA-15P, VISTA-20P	Firmware 9.12 or higher — connects by ECP
VISTA-21iP	Firmware 3.13 or higher — connects by ECP
VISTA-128BPT	Firmware 10.0 or higher — connects by ECP
VISTA-250BPT	Firmware 10.3 or higher — connects by ECP
DSC PC1616, PC1832, PC1864	Connects on the panel’s bus
Interlogix NetworX NX-8E, NX-4V2, NX-6V2, NX-8V2	Connects on the panel’s bus
Every other panel, including the rest of the VISTA family	Dialer capture — monitoring, no app

A First Alert FA panel is a VISTA under another badge — an FA148C is a 20P, an FA168 is a 128BPT and so on. The list above names the VISTA part numbers, so we read the actual board and the actual firmware on the visit rather than going by the sticker. It usually comes out in your favour.

Lights and locks, on an old panel

A Wi-Fi and Z-Wave module goes inside the communicator ($99), and then the Total Connect account runs up to 78 Z-Wave Plus devices on a panel that was never built for any of it — 60 lights, shades and water valves, 6 thermostats, 6 locks and 6 garage door controls.

One thing it cannot do: Smart Scenes. Resideo does not support them on this setup. Every device works individually — what you do not get is the one button that runs several of them at once. If automation is why you are asking, say so and we will price both this and a new panel rather than sell you a tier with a feature in it that your hardware cannot reach.

One app, and it is Total Connect 2.0. There is no separate First Alert app to install — the cameras, the doorbell, the panel, the lights and the locks are all in the one place, which is the point of running them on this line rather than on four different accounts. The app guide is here, and the VX Series brochure is Resideo’s own on the cameras.

Before you rely on this page. The specifications and prices here come from the manufacturer’s own literature and from our own cost list, and both change — and we can get something wrong. Nothing on this site is a quote. We confirm every detail on the visit and in writing before anything is ordered, and if there is an error here we correct it and re-quote rather than hold you to it. Where this site might be wrong →

What the install actually involves

The communicator mounts near the panel and wires to it. Its 9 V power adaptor is in the box, so there is no transformer to buy.
Internet by network cable or Wi-Fi — one or the other, not both. Wi-Fi means the same $99 module that brings the Z-Wave, so a panel with no network cable near it is a $498 job rather than a $399 one. We will have said so before you see a price.
Cell is the backup, not the only path. It reports over your internet first and falls to AT&T LTE when the internet is out.
It is ULC S304 listed, which is the Canadian standard our monitoring runs under — not every communicator on the market is.
It takes a backup battery so it keeps reporting through a power cut. That is a separate part and we will quote it with the job.
Monitoring is 24/7 ULC by Lanvac with live Ottawa agents — the same desk as every other account we have.
No contract. Thirty days’ notice to cancel.

Tell us what is on the wall →

Or call 613-233-1115. If you can send a photo of the keypad and of the inside of the box, we can usually answer before anybody drives anywhere.