How to Program Entry and Exit Delays and Time Them
Why this matters
The alarm industry traces most burglary false alarms to user error, and a familiar version of it is a person who could not get to the keypad, or out of the door, before the delay ran out. The panel was doing exactly what it was told. What it was told came from a tech who typed in the default delay, or a number that felt right, without ever walking the path the customer actually walks. Timing the delays takes fifteen minutes with a stopwatch and the customer's real routine, and it is the cheapest false alarm reduction a dealer can do. This card times them and sets them from the times.
The standard's broader false alarm features (cancel and abort windows, swinger shutdown, cross zoning) are owned by False Alarm Reduction Features in the SIA CP-01 Standard. This card uses three of them.
What the delays are, briefly
Entry delay is the time between an entry/exit zone opening while armed and the alarm, during which the keypad beeps and a valid code stops it. Exit delay is the time after arming during which entry/exit zones can open and close without alarm, so the person can leave. Both are programmed in the panel, and on most panels a zone uses them only if its zone type is entry/exit, or interior follower for a device that sits on the path. A delay can be perfectly timed and still fail if a motion detector on the walk to the keypad is programmed as an instant interior zone, so check zone types on the path too; see related: Zone Types and What Each One Does When Tripped.
The range is not wide open. Panels listed to ANSI/SIA CP-01 enforce a minimum and maximum for each delay and ship with defaults inside them. In the edition most residential panels are listed to, entry delay cannot be programmed below 30 seconds and exit delay below 45 seconds; check the panel's programming guide for the exact range it enforces, because some localities require CP-01 compliant settings by ordinance and a panel switched out of its compliant mode can stop meeting that.
Step 1: put the account on test
The timing runs and the customer's finish run each risk a real alarm if a delay turns out short. Put the account on test with the central station before the first run, per How to Put an Alarm Account on Test and Take It Off, and keep it there until the customer's own runs pass.
Step 2: find the path they actually use
Ask how each person in the house comes and goes on an ordinary day, not which door they think of as the front door. In most attached-garage homes the real entry is the garage, through a mudroom, and the front door is for guests. Then walk it with them and note every device on the path: the door contacts that start the entry delay, any motion detector that sees the walk to the keypad, and an overhead garage door contact if there is one, because that changes what "leaving" means.
Step 3: time entry, three times, with the real load
Start the stopwatch when the entry door opens. Stop it when the last digit of the code is entered. Run it three times:
- Empty-handed, at the customer's normal pace.
- Carrying what they carry: grocery bags, a laptop bag, a child.
- The slowest real case the household has: the family member who moves slowest, or the person who fumbles for reading glasses at the keypad.
Why three and the slowest one wins: a delay must cover the worst ordinary arrival, not the average one. The empty-handed run is the one the tech would time on their own, and it is the one that produces short delays.
Step 4: time exit, three times
Start when the arm command is accepted at the keypad. Stop when the last entry/exit zone on the path is closed: the house door, or the overhead garage door if it carries a contact. If the overhead door is on an entry/exit zone, the exit includes getting into the car, starting it, backing out, and the door closing behind it. Run it three times on the same basis as entry: normal, loaded, slowest.
Step 5: compute the delays
The shop's rule: take the slowest of the three runs, add 50 percent, and round up to the panel's next programmable step; never below the panel's CP-01 minimum. The 50 percent covers the days that run slower than any timed run: rain, a dropped key fob, a phone ringing.
Here is the job this card follows. Family of four, attached garage, keypad in the kitchen 20 ft from the mudroom door. Overhead garage door has a contact on an entry/exit zone, because the customer wanted the garage protected. Two school-age children; the slowest exit is the one with both children getting into the car.
DELAY TIMING - ACCT 5120
ENTRY: mudroom door open -> code entered
run 1 empty-handed 14 s
run 2 two grocery bags 18 s
run 3 parent carrying sleeping 23 s
child
slowest 23 s x 1.5 = 34.5 s -> program 35 s
EXIT: arm accepted -> overhead door closed
run 1 one adult, no stops 41 s
run 2 adult + laptop bag 47 s
run 3 adult + two kids buckled 56 s
slowest 56 s x 1.5 = 84 s -> program 85 s
Front door entry, checked separately: slowest 11 s
11 s x 1.5 = 16.5 s, under the 30 s minimum
-> covered by the 35 s entry delay
Checked both ways. 35 seconds against the slowest entry of 23 leaves 12 seconds of slack, which is 52 percent of 23. 85 seconds against the slowest exit of 56 leaves 29 seconds, 52 percent of 56. Both sit just above the 50 percent the rule asks for because of the round-up.
Why not just program the maximum? A longer entry delay is a longer window for an intruder who has come through the entry door to reach the keypad and damage it before the panel reports. Some communicator services protect against that by reporting the entry immediately and cancelling only on a valid code, but not every account has it. Size the delay to the family, not to the ceiling.
Step 6: turn on the three features that cover the timing you could not predict
These are standard CP-01 features; confirm each is on, because a panel taken out of its compliant settings by a previous tech may have them off.
Exit time restart. If the entry/exit door is reopened during the exit delay, because someone came back for their phone, the panel restarts the exit delay once. Without it, the second trip out has only what was left of the first delay. On this house, run 3 would have failed without it the first morning someone forgot a backpack.
Auto stay arming. If the system is armed away and nobody opens an entry/exit door before the exit delay ends, the panel concludes everyone is still home and arms in stay mode, with interior zones bypassed. That catches the person who arms away by habit and then walks to the kitchen.
Exit and entry annunciation. The keypad beeps through both delays, faster near the end. A customer who can hear the delay running moves before it ends. Make sure the keypad on the path, not just the one by the bedroom, has its sounder on.
Step 7: check the path devices against the delays
With the delays set, walk the entry path armed (account still on test) and watch the keypad. The motion detector in the kitchen sees the walk to the keypad; on this house it was programmed as interior follower, so it waited for the entry delay instead of tripping the instant it saw motion. If it had been programmed as an instant interior zone, the perfectly timed 35 seconds would never have mattered.
The overhead door contact was on the same entry/exit zone type, so opening it while armed starts the same 35-second entry delay. That means the customer coming home by car has 35 seconds from the overhead door starting to rise to reaching the kitchen keypad, which is a different path than the one timed in step 3: through the garage, past the car, through the mudroom. Time it once more. On this house it ran 21 seconds with bags, inside the delay, so no change was needed. Where it runs longer, the delay is computed from that longer path instead, using the same rule.
Step 8: the finish test is the customer's, not yours
Hand the keypad to the customer. With the account on test, they arm away, leave by their real route with their real load, and return and disarm, while you watch without coaching. Then the slowest household member does the same. Acceptance: both complete exit and entry without the keypad entering its last fast-beep stretch and without hurrying. If either one rushes, add another programmable step and run it again; the customer's comfort is the measure, because a customer who feels rushed every day eventually stops arming.
Then call the station and confirm they received no alarms during the runs, and take the account off test only after the station confirms the account is back to normal. Write the timed runs and the programmed values on the account record. When a false alarm from this house comes in next winter, the follow-up starts from those numbers.
What changes the delays
A keypad moved or added. Every delay was timed to a specific keypad. A second keypad by the garage door shortens the real entry path and may let the delay come down; moving the only keypad upstairs lengthens it.
A new household member. An older relative moving in, or a dog walker with a code, is a new slowest case. Re-time.
A panel with two entry delays. Some panels allow a different entry delay per zone. Use it when one door's path is much longer than another's, rather than setting every door to the longest; the front door on this house would then sit at the 30-second minimum.
References
- ANSI/SIA CP-01, Control Panel Standard: Features for False Alarm Reduction, in the edition the panel is listed to.
- Panel manufacturer programming guide: delay ranges, exit time restart, auto stay, annunciation settings.
- See related: False Alarm Reduction Features in the SIA CP-01 Standard
- See related: Zone Types and What Each One Does When Tripped
- See related: How to Put an Alarm Account on Test and Take It Off