RISCO LIGHTSYS Panel has been disabled remotely??

[Pgeddon]

Hi all,

Had a RISCO Lightsys2 for a while now, always been great until recently noticing it had stopped giving us status update emails.

Logged into the app and was met with this message saying im not authorised to access the site and that i should contact my installer?!



Obviously gave them a call, they said all the places that could help with this (risco technical etc) are closed till the 5th Jan, but they did also say that there is an outstanding bill for the GSM service this alarm uses (it uses GSM as a backup incase the WIFI goes down).

To be completely honest I didnt even know where was an arrears, but even in the result of there being one...I really can't understand why the entire panel has been made entirely inaccessible by me? Fair enough not allowing it to be function via GSM if i've not continued to pay for that service.... But see the attachment below, it's saying the site has been disabled when I try to login via my desktop computer too. Meaning they've blocked my WiFi access to it too?!...which doesn't sit right with me.



Am I being crazy or am I right to be confused here? as mentioned above.... do they have the right to disable my site from wifi access too? that bit isn't a paid for service. Plus im surprised they even have that level of access to my panel...forgive the phrase but I find that 'alarming' too!

Lastly, for those of you that use risco, youll know you need to pay a separate annual subscription to use their app, as far as I know I have paid that and it expires september next year. though I have paid for that with my applewallet which has a different email to the one I use to loginto my risco.... do you think that could be related? or just a coincedence?



any light shed on this'd be really appreciated, or even better if anyone knows how I can get it back online without being stuck into a GSM thing in future, that'd be great.

P

 

[Richard-the-Ninth]

Your installer can not help, your alarm works perfectly well without it, since you have been "blocked" by Risco the only option you have is to call them when they are open. It could be worse, you could have lost your whole internet.

 

[Pgeddon]

Yeah I figured as much. Looking at the emails ive got over the past few months, the subscription is confusing to be honest. A company called Security Point have been emailing me asking me to subscribe to continue to use the RISCO app, but as mentioned above the app itself asked me to do that directly via apple wallet. Then as a third parallel you have this whole gsm subscription service which may or may not be a separate entity based on how youve set the panel up.

Maybe im being dumb, but I think it's convoluted.

RE: lost the whole internet, how do you mean? Connection wise I currently cannot access the panel at all. Via GSM or Internet. Meaning if I go out i've got no way of knowing the alarm is going off or not, having been burgled twice in the past it's making me feel uncomfy to say the least!

 

[Richard-the-Ninth]

lost the whole internet, how do you mean?

I am meaning what I said, your internet connection stops working.


Your alarm is still working, it only uses the internet/gsm to tell you what you already know, you have just left the house and the alarm is set, or a member of your family has just come home and turned the alarm off.

I personally do not see the point of such information, yes I understand you now see it as it is nice to know the alarm is set, but what did you do 10 or even 5 years ago? You didn't worry about it because it did not exist (The information, not the alarm) Now the information has stopped, look at what stress you are putting yourself under, is it worth it?

I would suggest you install CCTV instead.

 

[Pgeddon]

10 years ago I didn't own a house, 5 years ago i'd been burgled 0 times. =P

We have cctv already.

Yes, it's worth knowing the alarm is going off when im not there. Otherwise I wouldn't have purchased a Lightsys2.

Incidentally - do you know the best way to check a lightsys panel is connected to wifi and is using that over GSM for example?

 

[Andy™]

look in your router DHCP table / connected devices. if its there, its connected to wifi, if its not then it isnt

and with remote access, youd be surprised what the installer can do

 

[Pgeddon]

It's got an IP Module inside it and that's connected to a Wifi bridge (vonets), that wifi bridge was pointed at the router's SSID and has the same password as the router etc. That bit all seems to be working.

I have occasionally seen the wifi bridge's MAC address in the 'attached devices' in the routers settings. But not sure if I've seen the panel's IP address, not sure what it is tbh and dont have the engineers code to check that on the Panel side.

I guess im unsure whether the panel would even try to connect to the internet if its been put on the disabled list by the installer....

 

[Andy™]

comms from the panel will still be working and communicating with the outside world when it has internet, just the account on the other end will be disabled. no idea on risco, but others could be disabled completely remotely, however you then loose the ability to remotely log in and enable it

 

[Pgeddon]

Installer is looking into it today - but in the interim I wasn't able to get it to do any sort of comms actually. No emails being sent saying it had been armed / unset etc. But as stated above - as the GSM is currently expired, Im not sure whether the WIFI is working.

I suppose I could just run an ethernet cable to it to see if that hooks it up. Maybe the issue is the wifi bridge etc. Or maybe I need to recode something on the panel to get it hooked up, but I dont have the engineer's code.

 

[Andy™]

comms most likely are working in that its transmitting to risco. but if the account its linked to is disabled then it wont notify you. if the comms was broken then you should be getting a comms failure message on the alarm