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Hi, been meaning to get round to investigating this for a little while, but some fairly major home renovations have been sucking up all my spare time...
Some weeks ago, one of my keypads lost its voice - and all other sounds - completely. The LEDs still work correctly, the keys still all perform their functions correctly. Nothing occurred around the time this stopped working that would have potentially disturbed anything, - no changes to comfort config, wiring either at the panel end or the KP end etc... (I wondered if it might be something as obvious as a wiring fault developed on the VOICE line).
However, since then, I\'ve also been noticing that the voice on another keypad has been noticably degrading... - difficult to decribe exactly, but the overall audio quality has degraded; it seems fainter, but also \"muffled\". In addition, I\'ve noticed that in any given sentence, various words (not consistent) occasionally drop out completely. - I have a voice announcement for the main entry door that tends to be the most noticeable example of this... - I very often hear it say \"Front ___ Open\"
Anyone got any ideas what might be going on here? - I\'ve done a panel reset (via comfigurator), but I\'ve not powered down completely (need to time that so the external siren doesn\'t annoy the neighbours!).
Like I said, due to time constraints I\'ve just been living with this, and haven\'t really done even basic diagnostics yet (beyond the reset), but if there\'s anything that anyone can suggest as likely causes that might expedite the troubleshooting process, that would be appreciated!
Paul G.
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I have not encountered gradual degradation of the voice quality. Do you mean that there are other keypads which still sound good? Perhaps the extensive renovations may have affected the keypad cables?
You can try exchanging the keypads, just unplug the front housing from the wall and connect it to the back housing of another keypad and vice versa. This will tell you if it is a keypad or wiring problem
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I have 3 keypads in total:
ID1: adjacent to front door (main entry path)
ID2: adjacent to my bed
ID3: adacent to Comfort panel in Node 0
ID1 is the one that is experiencing the \"voice degradation\", ID2 is the one that has lost all sound (not just voice, but beeps too). ID3 I don\'t know about since I only use it for testing when working at the panel. - so I\'n not sure if there are currently any KPs which still \"sound good\"....
The renovations in the house have been in the kitchen, - which is at the opposite end of the building, well away from any of these KP\'s. The only Comfort wiring in that area is for a PIR, for which the cable is completely hidden inside the walls & ceiling; - hence my assertion that nothing has gone on which should have been able to disrupt any wiring...
I have just received a new KP from my supplier for the express purpose of swap-out testing, so I\'ll get to that ASAP, - kitchen renovations are still ongoing, so might yet be another week or two before I can get on to troubleshooting this...
Cheers.
Paul G.
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Update to this: - I haven\'t had the free time to do the troubleshooting with the replacement keypad yet, but in the meantime, that keypad which was previously degrading has now gone \"mute\" just like the first one.
So I now have 2 out of 3 keypads that have fallen completely silent; no voice response of any kind. The 3rd keypad is as far as I can tell still functioning normally.. - it\'s situated in Node zero next to the panel itself - it was installed just for convenience when working on the panel - this is in the cellar so its voice is quite faint, but *can* be heard (just about) when operating the system from either of the other keypads..
I am fairly sceptical that this is going to be a hardware fault with two seperate keypads, in two seperate locations, with no shared wiring etc.
I will still try to get to the swap-out as soon as I can, - time is quite pressing at the moment though, so it may well be the Christmas break before I can round to this.
Anyone got any theories as to what might possibly cause these symptoms?
TIA
Paul G.
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Its a mystery
Perhaps the internal volume has been adjusted somehow
Sign in with your code and # key on the keypad to go the user menu and press 7 for Volume. It should announce \"50\" which is the normal volume. If not enter 50# to change.
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I\'ll give that a go. I\'m also likely to have to power down the panel completely in the next week or two, since I\'m having some plumbing works done in the vacinity...
Do you recall back just after the launch of the G2 there were a few instances of the recorded announcements \"disappearing\"... I think it was eventually traced back to some problem related to the pillar height (or was it the pillar material? I can\'t remember)... I experienced the phenomena myself a couple of times, and I remember Nigel sending me a pack of replacement pillars for mounting the LEM... - is there any possibility of something akin to that hapenning here? - some kind of static build-up perhaps?
The fact that the 3rd keypad does seem to still be speaking normally would tend to rule out problems at the panel itself, but all I can think of is that the unaffected KP is very close to the panel and is thus only on about 1m of cable... could this be relevant? The other interesting thing is that the two silent KP\'s are about the same age, whereas the still-functioning one is considerably newer.. - again, is there a possibility of some age-related component failure in the KP\'s themselves? - wouldn\'t that scenario fit the observed symptom of the gradually degrading voice? (If that\'s the case, then obviously the swap-out will prove it one way or the other...)
TIA
Paul G.
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I suspect the problem is with the keypads speakers from what you say
They may have decided that they have had enough 
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Yup, that seems like it might well be the case, - I just swapped one out for a new one, and the voice is back.... I did get a few other odd behaviours, but that might be because I\'ve not checked some of the jumpers perhaps (pretty sure I made certain it was set to the right KP ID)... I got a communications failure alarm when I disconnected the old one, but that cleared as soon as I reconnected the new one.. afterwards I was able to sign in & hear the voice menu, but I noticed a couple of \"quirks\":
1) the green \"Off\" LED didn\'t seem to always be correctly tracking the state... - when I first connected the KP, it didn\'t come on, - it did come on after I signed in... however I\'m sure I subsequently saw it go off again. it\'s on at the moment, as it should be, I\'ll keep an eye on it...
2) when signed out, I should be able to press hash to get a report of any answering machine messages \"No Message\" or \"New message for....\" - I don\'t... all I get is a single beep from the speaker of about 2 seconds duration... this isn\'t right yet either...
I imagine both of the above effects are probably down to configuration parameters (I\'ve put a KP03 in place of a KP04 if that matters...)
So, I guess I\'ve now got to order another KP04 for the ID1 replacement - the KP03 I\'ve just fitted there is actually the replacement for ID2 in another room... I don\'t suppose there\'s any kind of refurbishment possible on these KP\'s is there?
Paul G.
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You should not have to configure for KP03 or KP04 in Comfort beyond setting the ID and the number of Keypads in Comfigurator
The led status will not be correct if you connect the keypad to a live Comfort system, until you arm or disarm the system.
Try resetting Comfort
We can repair the KP04 if you are not in a hurry, ie send it back to Cytech and pay for the transport costs back. Or send it back to a distributor, wait for their next shipment
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One more bit of feedback...
SWMBO has just informed me that the new KP Design is less effective than the slightly older design we had in place before.... - She definitely doesn\'t like that the text & icons on the individual keys are now white instead of black... apparently when the backlighting comes on, it\'s *much* harder to make out white-against-pale-green than it was to make out black-against-pale-green....
To keep the peace, I suggested I may be able to swap over the rubber keypad membrane with the older keypad, but I haven\'t looked at how easy that would be to do.. - is this a simple, straigntforward swap over?
Cheers.
Paul G.
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