Honeywell VISTA-20P Ademco Control Panel, PCB in Aluminum Enclosure

Works

This is a great and widely popular panel from Honeywell. I didnt have any issues swapping it out for my old panel, and hooking up my zones and expansion modules was straight-forward. This little panel does everything youd need it to. It does come with the required EOL resistors and zone doubling resistors, as well as the AC transformer. It does NOT come with a battery (which is clearly stated and I didnt mark off for). The one issue I have, and the reason I marked it down one star, is that the communications interface with external communications devices is less than ideal. The panel reports zone faults in real-time, but does not report zones clearing in real-time. This means that if youre using an external communicator, like the Eyez-On Envisalink, youll get notices of faults relatively fast, but it can take up to a minute or two before youll get a notice that everything has cleared up. DSC panels dont have that issue, as they report much more information on their interfaces. It doesnt bother me that much, and its easy enough to work around, but if youre a perfectionist, it might annoy you a bit. If youre using only keypads and professional monitoring, however, youll never notice this slight annoyance at all. The bottom line is this panel was extremely easy to hook up, had no issues with installation or programming, and works perfectly for its intended purpose. I can certainly recommend Honeywell panels to others.

a GOOD PRODUCT FOR THE PRICE. EASY TO INSTALL. DIS IT MY SELF JUST FOLLOWED THE INSTRUCTIONS AND EVERTHING WENT WENT SMOOTH.

I bought 2 panels, one of which was fine, the second unfortunately was damaged and out of warranty by the time I used it. The panel had been previously programmed and not defaulted, two zones were damaged and the battery sensing circuit was damaged. When you buy used equipment, you need to bench test immediately or have a better exchange warranty.

I got this to replace an old 1980s Radio Shack security system in our new home. Talk about a huge upgrade! Pairing this with an RF enabled keypad such as the 6162 RF makes it easy to add additional RF security sensors, without the hassle of running wires through existing construction. The gauge of the sheet metal is a little on the flimsy side, but I suppose its thick enough. The door pivots on metal tabs in slots, a real hinge would have been nice. The firmware version I got was the newer 9.18, which seems to have the new VIP menu driven programming interface that work with the 6162. As an embedded engineer, it was still a bit tedious to figure out how to program it. Im sure an alarm technician could navigate the menus much faster than I. Still learning the conceptual details of zones, modes, partitions, etc. But that gives me assurances that it will be very configurable for future plans. As others have said, these products are meant for installation by professionals bearing expensive monitoring contracts. The panel came with a good wiring diagram, but the programming guide assumes a little prior knowledge specific to Ademco control panels. It is not written for the DIYer, but you can figure it out. It seems from searching the Internet that there are additional programming features and options not described in the included manual. I intend to keep the system hooked up to a little chime siren for a few months while we ensure we dont have false alarms. Next phase will be adding networked control with AD2USB or Envisalink 3. Overall a great value for the price.

Received the latest 10.23 version. Works perfectly. I upgraded an older version 1.4 Vista 20P to this without any problems. I moved the wires one by one from old to new. Then I simply went through and read all of the configuration information from the existing unit and then programmed it into the new unit; all of this work is done through the alpha numeric keypad on the system. No issues whatsoever!

Needed to replace defective panel

If youre planning on a DIY wired (or wireless) alarm system, then this product is impossible to beat, both for function and for price. Plenty of zones, and it will accept multiple types of keypads. The instructions tend to assume that you know how to program one of these things, but there is plenty of information available on the web to help you through it, and once you understand how the programming works, youll see that the instructions are very detailed and complete. One thing this unit doesnt offer is the ability to dial my own cell phone if the alarm goes off. Then again, no other product, at any price, does either. But because this product offers many outputs, I am going to see if I can program a Raspberry Pi to perform that function.

Love it

If youre not adverse to a little trial and error this system isnt all that difficult to install. Once you get the hang of expected keystrokes you catch on pretty fast. There are also plenty of articles on the web to help you along. Youll need a 6160 keypad or similar for setup. A 6150 wont do.