Qolsys IQ Panel Setup

Qolsys IQ Panels connect to Home Assistant through the Qolsys Panel integration, a community integration installed through HACS. Home Assistant pairs with the panel as an IQ Remote, the secondary touchscreen Qolsys sells, and keeps a local, encrypted connection over which the panel pushes its changes as they happen. Nothing passes through Alarm.com.

The panel stays the security system of record. Central station monitoring, the siren, and the battery backup keep working when Home Assistant restarts or is offline.

The same steps apply to the IQ Panel 5, IQ Panel 4, IQ Panel 2+, and the IQ Hub.

Before You Start

1. Get the installer code. The IQ Remote pairing page is behind it. A panel installed by another dealer is usually locked: that dealer, or the new dealer after an account takeover, unlocks it through the Alarm.com Partner Portal. Confirm this before the visit.
2. Update the panel firmware through the dealer. Some features depend on it: silent disarming needs version 4.6.1 or later.
3. Put the panel on Wi-Fi, on the same network as the Selora Hub. While pairing, Home Assistant announces itself over mDNS and the panel finds it. mDNS does not cross VLANs, and some Wi-Fi systems and managed switches filter it. The requirement only applies while pairing.
4. Reserve the panel’s IP address. Reserve its address in the router.
5. Install HACS if the Hub does not have it yet: see Install HACS .

Step 1: Install the Integration

1. Open HACS, search for Qolsys Panel, and download it.
2. Restart Home Assistant when HACS asks.

Step 2: Pair the Panel

1. On the panel, go to Settings > Advanced Settings, enter the installer code, then go to Installation > Devices > Wi-Fi Devices > IQ Remote Devices. Stay on that page.
2. In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Devices & Services, select Add Integration, and search for Qolsys Panel.
3. Choose Automatic Panel Discovery and Pairing, then select Submit.
4. When Home Assistant shows the waiting message, press Pair on the panel’s IQ Remote page.
5. Assign the panel to an area.

During pairing, the panel connects to Home Assistant on a random port between 50000 and 55000, and the two exchange certificates. From then on, Home Assistant connects to the panel on TCP 8883.

Home Assistant keeps the certificates in the qolsys_panel/pki folder of its configuration. To reconnect to the same panel without pairing again, for example after the Hub moved to another network, add the integration with Use Existing PKI, enter the panel’s IP address, and choose the PKI Unique ID created at pairing.

Step 3: Set Up the User Codes

The integration cannot read the user codes stored on the panel. It checks codes against its own file, qolsys_panel/users.conf in the Home Assistant configuration, and sends the matching panel user to the panel. User Code required to Disarm is on by default, so until the file exists, every disarm from Home Assistant fails with an invalid code.

1. On the panel, go to Settings > Advanced Settings > User Management and note the ID of the user Home Assistant should act as. A dedicated user keeps Home Assistant’s actions apart from the family’s codes.

2. Create /homeassistant/qolsys_panel/users.conf, for example with the Studio Code Server app, with that ID and the code to type in Home Assistant:

   [{ "id": 3, "user_code": "2468" }]
   

   The code does not have to match the one on the panel. Add one entry per user who disarms from Home Assistant.

3. Reload the Qolsys Panel entry from its menu (⋮).

Keep User Code required to Disarm on. With it off, anyone who can open Home Assistant can disarm the alarm without a code.

Step 4: Set the Options

Open the Qolsys Panel entry and select Configure:

• User Code required to Arm is off by default. Turn it on to ask for a code when arming too.
• Enable Trigger Police Alarm, Enable Trigger Auxiliary Alarm, and Enable Trigger Fire Alarm are off. Turn one on only when the customer wants Home Assistant to raise that alarm, and check with the dealer how the panel reports it to the central station.
• Enable Motions Sensor Delay is off. When on, each motion zone stays detected for Motion Sensors Delay (310 seconds by default) after its last trigger instead of clearing at once. Turn it on when motion zones drive lights or occupancy.
• Enable Peek In Picture is on and keeps the latest Peek In snapshot from the panel’s camera as an image entity.

What Comes Through

• One alarm control panel per partition, with arm home, away, and night, and disarm. Switches for exit sounds, entry delay, instant arm home, and silent disarming, and sensors for fire, police, CO, and auxiliary alarms.
• Every zone, with its state: open or closed, motion, and so on. Depending on the sensor, also tamper, battery, signal strength, and on some PowerG sensors temperature and light.
• The panel itself: power, battery, and tamper status, its scenes, doorbell and chime events, and a media player that speaks text-to-speech announcements.
• Devices paired to the panel: Z-Wave locks, lights, thermostats, garage doors, and scene controllers, plus some PowerG, Zigbee, and Alarm.com devices.
• Actions: qolsys_panel.trigger_police, trigger_auxilliary, trigger_fire, quick_exit, change_master_volume, and update_picture_peek_in.

Home Assistant only sees what the panel shares with an IQ Remote. Some Z-Wave device types, such as smart outlets and water valves, come through only partially.

Where to Pair Z-Wave Devices

Leave Z-Wave devices on the panel when the customer wants them in the Alarm.com app too. Pair them to Home Assistant’s own Z-Wave network when they do not: Home Assistant then gets every feature of the device. A Z-Wave device belongs to one network at a time, so exclude it from the panel first.

Network Access

• From Home Assistant to the panel: TCP 8883.
• While pairing only: mDNS on the local network, and the panel to Home Assistant on a TCP port between 50000 and 55000.

Keep the panel’s own Wi-Fi and cellular paths to Alarm.com open: monitoring depends on them.

Troubleshooting

1. Home Assistant waits and the panel never pairs. Check that both are on the same subnet and that the network does not filter mDNS. While Home Assistant waits, a discovery app on a phone, such as Discovery on iPhone, should show the NsdPairService service.
2. Pairing starts on the wrong address. The waiting message shows the IP address the panel must reach. If it is not the Hub’s address on the panel’s network, change the adapter under Settings > System > Network.
3. “Credentials rejected by panel”. The panel no longer accepts the stored certificate, for example after the IQ Remote was deleted on the panel. Home Assistant asks to re-authenticate the entry: pair again from there.
4. Disarming fails with “Invalid user code”. The code is not in users.conf, or the file is missing or not valid JSON. Fix it as in Step 3 , then reload the entry. The Home Assistant log reports a user ID from the file that does not exist on the panel.
5. A device on the panel is missing. The panel does not share it with IQ Remotes, or the integration does not support that device type yet. Pair it to Home Assistant directly instead, if it supports Z-Wave.