The Honeywell Lynx Touch L5100 home security system is one of the most advanced home systems available for the DIY market. While the majority of DIYers will enjoy saving money by installing the system themselves, nothing beats not having to work through any of the quirks that systems like these often have. The following are installation tips for the Honeywell Lynx Touch L5100 security system. Save yourself a lot of time by learning from my own experience with this phenomenal home security system.
First and foremost, watch the following videos made by Sterling over at Alarmgrid.com. Sterling walks you through the entire installation, programming, usage and how to get back into the Honeywell L5100 alarm system if you accidentally locked yourself out.
Honeywell L5100: DIY Installation of Lynx Touch L5100
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Honeywell L5100: Locked Out? Get Back Into Programming!
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Honeywell L5100: Join your Local WIFI Network
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Honeywell L5100: Basic Instructions for Using the LYNXTouch
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Plan Your Installation & Read the Instructions – If you have more than a basic understanding of electronics, you will find the installation of the Honeywell L5100 to be pretty straightforward. However, to say the Honeywell L5100 is made for the average DIYer, would not be entirely true. The integrity of the alarm system is mostly dependent on the quality of the installation. If you the installer do not take the time to route the power wires, and in some cases Ethernet cord behind the walls, it will be fairly simple for a skilled burglar to disable your alarm system. A wire fish, which can be found for $20 at your local hardware store, will make the wire routing much easier and help you attain a professional installation.
Do You Have An Existing Alarm System? – If you have an existing wireless alarm system and it utilizes wireless sensors (door, windows, smoke, etc…etc…) you may be able to re-use the sensors with the Honeywell L5100 touch panel. In my own home, I had an ADT system that was installed in 2008. The entire system was wireless and I was able to use all of the window and door sensors as well as the wireless smoke alarms. All I had to do was open up each one of the sensors and write down the serial number inside each sensor. Those serial numbers were inputted into the 5100 touch panel during the initial setup. This saved quite a bit of time and money.
The Power Source – Before you start the installation you must know one thing…you have to buy a power cable. Honeywell has provided you with everything to install a quality home alarm system except a power cable. The reason behind this is Honeywell markets the system to the professional installer. Professional installers will fabricate a power cable from electrical wire and will do so dependent on the length of the wire run. For the average DIYer, the fabrication of a power cable may sound a little daunting. Luckily, a pre-made power cable for the Honeywell 5100 can be purchased from AlarmGrid.com. It is called the Honeywell LT-Cable and can be had for $15.00 before shipping.
Touch Panel Installation Location – You will need to think about a few things before you install the Honeywell L5100 Touch Panel.
First, the touch panel requires an nearby electrical outlet. Consider the length of electrical wire you have and calculate just how far you will be able to place the touch panel away from the outlet. In most cases, you will need to place the touch panel about 4-5 feet above an electrical outlet.
Second, you will need to decide if you are going to connect the system to a monitoring service. While the Honeywell L5100 can be connected to a monitoring service via POTS (plain old fashioned telephone service), you can also connect to a monitoring service using a broadband internet connection. This allows you to perform numerous functions via the Total Connect iOS app. Keep in mind, if you want to be able to control the alarm system remotely via the iOS app, you will need to subscribe to a monitoring service.
If you do decide to connect the system to your internet service, you will need to purchase either the Honeywell wireless card (Honeywell L-5100-WIFI) or the Ethernet jack (Honeywell ILP5). For a wireless connection, make sure you have a strong enough signal from your router or access point that will not drop the connection to your L5100 touch panel. If you plan on using the Ethernet port (Honeywell ILP5) to connect your system, make sure you can route an Ethernet cord to your L5100 touch panel.
In addition to the affected placement of the touch panel from the router, anyone that has disabled the wireless G portion of their router for performance purposes will now have to enable it or purchase an access point to run a dedicated wireless G signal.
In my own experience, I found the wireless adapter performance to be inconsistent. Too often, the wireless adapter would lose connection to the wireless network and a reboot of the touch panel would be required…sometimes a hard reboot requiring the opening of the panel and removal of the battery and power cable. I have tried numerous routers and configurations with mixed degrees of success. I have purchased the Honeywell ILP5, which allows the touch panel to connect to my router via a hardwired Ethernet connection. I will update this article later on with my experience with the Honeywell ILP5.
Backup Power – While the Honeywell 5100 does come with a rechargeable backup battery, this backup battery only provides power to the touch panel. If you rely on your internet connection to connect your alarm system to a monitoring service, consider using an uninterruptible power supply. An uninterruptible power supply, also uninterruptible power source or UPS, is a device that provides emergency backup power to connected electronic devices when the main power source fails.
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ILP5 Communication Module – It’s been about 2 weeks now with the ILP5 communication module and the alarm system couldn’t work any better. If your wireless connection keeps dropping from the Honeywell wireless module, the ILP5 is definitely worth the extra work. The internet connection has not dropped once due to some random hiccup in my wireless network. With the wireless module, I would need to reboot the system at least every other day. I now feel confident that this system will maintain a strong connection to the internet.
Hi Jaime,
Don’t forget to mention that there is an available cellular option for people that don’t want to rely on their internet for monitoring.
The GSMVLP5-4G (https://www.alarmgrid.com/products/honeywell-gsmvlp5-4g) doesn’t require any wired connection and uses the AT&T cell phone towers so it’s the most reliable monitoring connection available.
Great blog otherwise!