One year and a couple months ago, I decided to purchase a self-install security system from a big warehouse store and leave behind the stagnant, overpriced, hard-to-update, legacy system we paid a lot of money for when we moved into our house nearly twenty years prior.
There was great promise of being able to control the new system via a mobile app and after installation and setup -- and bidding goodbye to the legacy monitoring company -- all of those expectations were met (and, in some cases, exceeded).
The new system came with a keypad for arming and disarming the system and we figured we'd remove the old system's keypad and replace it with the new keypad and I quickly realized that the new keypad would either need to be charged from time to time or plugged in, likely with a charging cable running along the wall to our already-full duplex outlet in the laundry room.
Neither of these were ideal solutions.
One day, I thought, "Surely the old keypad had some sort of power coming to it because it was lighted and had to know if I entered the right code or not, so maybe..." and many of you probably know the rest of that story.
I found that my old alarm system was indeed putting out 12 volts and that if I could step that down to 5 volts, ideally terminating in a USB connection, I could use that to power the keypad.
A quick something-search turned up a 12v-to-5v step-down converter, and I ordered it.
A few days later, I made some amateurish -- but secure -- connections of red to red and black to black (the tinned connectors were a nice touch), capped off the other wires, plugged in the micro USB cable into the keypad, and... power!
This was great.
I added some drywall anchors, mounted the keypad bracket, fed the bumpy length of cable and converter and USB connection into the bay between studs, slid the keypad into its bracket and I must say that it looked decent.
But more important than looks, I'd never have to worry about charging that keypad again. Awesome.
We bought a second new keypad to replace the old system's keypad and, of course, I bought another converter and essentially repeated the above steps for it.
Cool. If #ChargingKeypad life is so good, why am I writing this review?
Great question.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that the "mode" light on the laundry-room keypad (effectively showing that the system was disarmed or not) -- and one or two other lights that I wasn't really sure what they meant -- were not illuminated. Puzzled, I'd approach the keypad and the mode light would come on and I thought, oh, I guess it was confused or something, and I'd go about my business.
After a few times, it looked like the same thing was happening with the keypad in the bedroom, so I imagined that what must have happened was the vendor pushed out a software update to all keypads which changed something about the way the lights (no longer) stayed on.
I mentioned the above observations to my brother and he hypothesized that perhaps the vendor assumed that most users were running keypads on battery/charge and that, in an effort to conserve battery for them, the company shut off the always-on keypad lights no matter what the device setting was and they just forgot about us hardwired folks. :(
His theory sounded plausible, so I figured that perhaps other users would complain and get the company to change things back to the way they were. I had other stuff to deal with, so I figured that I'd just mentally wish those other users well and hope that a fix arrived sooner, rather than later.
However, a week or two later, I continued to get frustrated. I'd be on my way to bed really late at night and need to let the dog out, but I wasn't sure if my now-asleep spouse had already armed the alarm. Instead of a quick far glance over to the keypad in the laundry room, I'd have to walk up to the keypad and wait for it to illuminate its armed/disarmed light. Blargh.
I something-searched this no-lights-until-I'm-in-front-of-the-keypad scenario, figuring that surely I wasn't the only user experiencing this frustration, but I didn't find anything relevant. (Some users said that they upgraded from an early version of the keypad hardware to a new keypad and they no longer had mode lights, but that didn't seem to be related to my old-keypad situation.)
One night, I glanced over at the bedroom keypad and realized that its lights were definitely on. Weird.
I got out of bed, walked over to the laundry-room keypad, peeked at it from around the corner, and its lights were definitely off. Clearly something was different between our two keypads.
The next day, I pulled up the mobile app and compared the two keypads' settings in case I'd accidentally changed something for one and not the other, but I didn't notice any such differences.
However, as I was looking at each one, the battery icon caught my eye. On the laundry-room keypad, it was a battery icon. On the bedroom keypad, it was a battery icon with a small lightning bolt in the middle. Weird. I flipped back to the laundry-room keypad. No lightning bolt.
Hmmm.
I started to realize what had happened: a few weeks earlier, power to the laundry-room keypad must've been lost, so it was on battery power and turning off lights unless I was standing in front of it. The bedroom keypad was still powered, so its lights were still illuminated. Of course, that totally made sense.
I was confused, though, since it seemed odd that the old alarm panel was putting out power to one keypad, but not the other. I wondered if maybe someone in the attic recently had accidentally severed the cable or perhaps rodents found the laundry-room cable tasty, but the bedroom cable was unpalatable.
Of course, the most obvious explanation ended up being the right explanation: the 12v-to-5v step-down converter had failed. Power was still coming in, but not going out.
So I ordered this item (which bears the exact same label as my old, defunct one) and swapped it out an hour or two ago and I'm back in business -- the lights on the laundry-room keypad are glowing just like they did up until recently. I'm just hoping that the first one dying was a fluke and that I don't have to add this item to my Subscribe & Save subscriptions. :)
Another update: the converter powering the bedroom keypad appears to have failed, so I ordered a replacement. I figure that replacing one of these every few years is a lot better than charging it every few months. Unfortunately, we had a remodel in the bathroom on the other side of that wall and I think the cable got pinched somehow because I cannot retrieve the converter! So I'm headed to the attic to see if I can free up the cable so I can extract the (likely dead) converter and, if not, I will have a spool of alarm wire to lengthen the run so that I can fish the converter (and likely future dead converters!) out of there. Either way, not a huge problem other than traversing the distance in the attic and trying to find where the alarm wire goes through the top plate of that wall (and hoping I get lucky that I can free up the bound wire without having to splice).
Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Frequently bought together
Similar items that may ship from close to you
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Compare with similar items
This Item  eoocvt DC Converter Buck Module 12V Convert to 5V USB Output Power Adapter |  |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | $8.99 | $8.99 | $15.99 | $12.99 | -8% $11.99 List: $12.99 | $8.99 |
| Delivery | — | Get it as soon as Saturday, May 11 | Get it as soon as Saturday, May 11 | Get it as soon as Saturday, May 11 | Get it as soon as Saturday, May 11 | Get it as soon as Saturday, May 11 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Easy to install | ||||||
| Value for money | ||||||
| Sold By | eoocvt | Charlinuoer | Charlinuoer | Yanoshi | QYXRXL | Charlinuoer |
| output voltage | 5 volts | 5 volts | 5 volts | 5 volts of direct current | 5 volts | 5 volts |
| input voltage | 8 volts | 12 volts | 12 volts | 12 volts of direct current | — | 12 volts |
| style | — | — | — | Automatic | 2 packs | Dual Interface |
| weight | 1.44 ounces | — | 5.6 ounces | — | — | 0.63 ounces |
Reviews with images
Does not supply 5V at even at .29 A
This is not a constant voltage power source. With a current draw of :.29 A -> 4.92 V.34 A -> 4.90 V.45 A -> 4.84 VThis won't power my project which requires 5V at 2amp. I will be returning this.
