Don’t get ScyTek products ie Galaxy Alarm

Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Security and Convenience
Forum Discription: Car Alarms, Keyless Entries, Remote Starters, Immobilizer Bypasses, Sensors, Door Locks, Window Modules, Heated Mirrors, Heated Seats, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=56824
Printed Date: May 13, 2025 at 8:14 AM

Topic: Don’t get ScyTek products ie Galaxy Alarm

Posted By: xenon2000
Subject: Don’t get ScyTek products ie Galaxy Alarm
Date Posted: June 01, 2005 at 4:21 PM

Maybe some of ScyTek products are good, but even then, why buy from a terrible company that won't return emails or phone calls.

I have the Galaxy 5000RS installed, not the 5100. Anyways. I have now had the alarm installed for about a month. And I don't like it. The range is just the worst I have ever had, completely useless for remote start away from home.

And the alarm is inconsistent. I set it for RPM sensing. 1 because RPM sensing claims to be the most reliable way to start the car, yet in this mode it almost never starts on the first try. 2, I wanted it to lock the doors based on RPMs so it doesn't lock right away since passengers often don't have the doors shut before it locks which means the door unlocks when it shuts because as an import is has lame "hold the door handle up" to keep them manually locked. Import owners will know what I am talking about. Anyways, it's not consistent for the door locking, it should only lock based on RPM. But instead sometimes it locks right away as if in the ignition lock mode, sometimes it does it based on RPM and sometimes it does both which is annoying to have it double lock like that.

Also, with the remote start, if it doesn't start the first try it takes forever between cycles. I think about 30 secs between cycles. Doesn't sound like a long time, but trust me, sit there for 30sec waiting for it to try again is forever. My other remote start retrys in about 5 sec and it didn't even have RPM sensing. Seems if it's using RPM sensing it should try cranking for at least 6-10 secs before giving up and then it should be able to see it's not started and retry within 5 secs not 30 sec.

$70 is cheap, but upset because for just $20 more I could have gotten the same alarm I was used to, and from a company that actually replies to emails and phone calls. Scytek in California will not reply to my emails and never calls me back on the phone.

Pro:

CHEAP and does work, but see the CONs.

Cons:

COMPANY IS UNPROFESSIONAL, won't call back or reply to emails, not once even.

Terrible remote range (like 50 feet on a good day)

Remote is slow to react (feel like I have to constantly press buttons)

Remote start is unreliable and has no config options other than RPM sensing or Auto.

Remote start cycle times are way too way apart.

RPM sensing mode gives buggy door locking results

So don't buy this alarm. I wish Someone else had mentioned these things, I would have stayed clear. At least it's just my GEO and was only $70 shipped. $90 plus shipping for either of the 2 alarms at 12voltshop.com (Canada) is a much better deal. They reply quickly, are very friendly and helpful. Their alarms are at least configurable, like crank times, etc. And most of all, their products are not buggy like ScyTek. And they are a great company with great prices.

Another note, even my ScyTek Galaxy 5000RS box that said 2003 on it, looked old as if sitting on a shelf since 2003. Avoid ScyTek.

Replies:

Posted By: Powermyster
Date Posted: June 01, 2005 at 4:31 PM

i've done the 5100 without any problems. i odn't buy off scytek direct the guy i buy off is fairly helpful

Posted By: Powermyster
Date Posted: June 01, 2005 at 4:36 PM

just noticed that you got it off X10.com a guy that had a problem with a scytek astra 777 last week bought it off them too. Coinsidance Maybe? I dunno

Posted By: ALARMTEK
Date Posted: June 01, 2005 at 4:45 PM

I sell and install they're products and it seemsas if you may have gotten a bad one. Can'ttell without inspection.

Did you get it from Scytek, or from a distributor?Alot of knock offs are out there.

My experience with them has not been the same as yours.I don't work for the Scytek company, but I do theseunits in my shop daily with very little trouble.

The support comes from the dealer you bought it from.If they are reputable, they should sort out theproblems, and or replace the system under warranty.

In any case, I have not seen this bad ofa review on they're systems. I would welcomesome more imput on your installataion to seeif it's a simple fix. I would start by repositioning the antenna .

Regards,

ALARMTEK

-------------
Robert Martin/Owner
ALARMTEK ONLINE
www.ALARMTEKONLINE.com

Posted By: Powermyster
Date Posted: June 01, 2005 at 4:51 PM

https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=55356&KW=X10%2Ecom

this is the thread from shrinktube4.0 who had the problem

Posted By: xenon2000
Date Posted: June 01, 2005 at 4:59 PM

X10.com is a good company, crappy website though. They deal directly with Intel as well. My brother works in the marketing department of Intel and has connections with X10.com and smarthouse.com as well. Anyways. X10.com I can contact. But the alarm is installed so I have to deal with ScyTek and they won't reply to my emails or return my phone calls. If it's just a bad unit, then I wouldn't mind shipping back the box only and swapping it with another one to try out.

All my connections are soldered and heat shrinked. Fully tested with a multimeter. Wiring double checked and tested before even plugging in the box. Wiring is perfect. I programmed the box for RPM sensing and that mode seems buggy. But even then. The range is the worst I have even seen and the remote starting logic is poorly designed. RPM sensing should at least crank much longer than 3 secs before giving up when it senses that the RPMs are not indicating a started engine.

I don't mind the retailers of ScyTek, but ScyTek themselves will not reply or return my phone calls. I have even tried emailing from different addresses in case they have some spam filter blocking them. But they should at least return my phone calls.

But I wanted to let people know my experience as a first time anonymous shopper of ScyTek products. My experience with the company directly has been worthless so far. And the 5000RS works, but is no where near a great alarm.

And even if the box is defective (even though it still works, just poorly) I don't see how the range would improve with a new box. My antenna is in my windshield like my other car. My other alarm gets 1000+ feet easily, so far that you have to listen carefully for the siren tones. This Galaxy 5000RS only gets about 50 feet. And the cycle times probably won't change with a new box either. So lame 30 sec between tries.

So if people (shops) are having good luck with thier retailers (suppliers) that is great. But as a normal person, I don't want something from a company that won't return my emails and phone calls.

Posted By: Shrinktube4.0
Date Posted: June 01, 2005 at 6:46 PM

I know how you feel
ScyTek does have a terrible reputation ignoring their customers mainly when you email them, I myself lost count, and so I finally gave up. I called them on my dime [long distance call] they where a lot more helpful.
Other than that don’t hold your breath. As for their alarms I really have seconds thoughts of how reliable some of them are.

I guessing they are having so many alarm problems questions that they can’t keep up with the volume of problems of emails. I bought the 777 astra it was all working the range on it was awesome except the unlock/lock problem constant positive + in the one wire. Was it a lemon, I think there was a problem with these that where scattered around in different area’s, do you think they will come out and say that there was a product problem on their Model[s]..we all would hope so…I’ve haven’t heard any thing of the sort.

Where is my ALARM [RMA] x10? Did some one say x10.com, they are so-so company at first I had a problem with them when I emailed them for a tracking number they said they would have on for me, but they ignored the heck out of me when emailed them, then I kept calling them and telling them I don’t like to be treated like that and I wanted a refund then they where more cool with me and took care of any problems I had.

Posted By: OhioMike1101
Date Posted: June 01, 2005 at 7:38 PM

You should be contacting the place you bought the equipment from for a new unit, not scytek. I do not believe they deal with the general public for warranty or installation issues very often.. Instead of emailing them, try calling them. I have never had a problem calling them. And the range issue, I have never had one. It usually has great range.

I have installed about 75 Astra 777 and 50 5000RS+ I have only had to send 1 brain back in 125+ of their alarms. I have had to send back about 7 of the 2way pagers though because customers break them. I have never had a problem with them at all.

We quit carrying them because we had problem getting product during remote start season.

Posted By: xenon2000
Date Posted: June 02, 2005 at 1:23 PM

Well, I will try contacting X10, but somehow I doubt they will exchange just the brain since there is no way I am unsoldering and redoing all my wiring. I have already tried calling ScyTek in California and all I get is a secratary of some kind, she takes a message and I never get a call back. Normally I would contact the retailer I buy from. I guess it is possible that I have a lemon brain. But seems odd that everything works, just poorly. Only buggy thing seems to be the door locking that sometimes does RPM locking, ignition locking or both. Even though my range sucks, I don't think a lemon brain would cause that. And I doubt that swapping will help my range or the 30 sec long delay between start cycles.

I am happy that others have been having good luck. But I must say that my personal experience with ScyTek directly has been a very poor one. And that alone is enough for me not to buy thier products. I will go back to using 12voltshop.com products. :)

Thanks again for posting your experiences with ScyTek and/or their products you have used.

Posted By: xenon2000
Date Posted: June 02, 2005 at 1:47 PM

OMG!!!! I finally found another number that is for Tech Support, and on my dime I just spoke to one of the most stupid people on the planet.

First of all, I could barely understand this guy.

He laughed at me when I told me I thought my unit was defective and claimed that if it was, it would be the first one in over 7 years. Which I highly doubt.

So I proceeded to tell him my issue about the door locking and RPM sensing and he tried telling me that it's working exactly how it should be working. And started saying that RPM door locking would happen sooner if I programmed the RPM idle with my foot on the gas so the idle would be programmed at 900-1000rpm!!! What an idiot! And he kept cutting me off, claiming that everything I said was exactly how it's suppose to work, etc. And if that is true, then this alarm really sucks because it should not work the way it does. If this was an early generation remote start alarm it would be expected, but this is nothing new and should be refined like many other products are.

I couldn't talk to him anymore and it just proves my point that this company sucks. Regardless of how much product success people claim to be having. I just can't support a company like this or thier products. I hope those who have already bought from them continue to have acceptable working units and hope that people looking to make new purchases will take company quality into account.

I don't know if my venting is obvious, but I have never had such a poor experience with any other car product/alarm company. So much for trying to branch out and try different suppliers. What a joke of a company.

Posted By: xenon2000
Date Posted: June 02, 2005 at 2:02 PM

since I can't edit my own posts (lame by the way) I messed up this line:

He laughed at me when I told me I thought my unit was defective and claimed that if it was, it would be the first one in over 7 years. Which I highly doubt.

Should look like this:

He laughed at me when I told him I thought my unit was defective and he claimed that if it was, it would be the first one in over 7 years. Which I highly doubt.

Incase people had a hard time reading the first version of this statement. :)

Posted By: xenon2000
Date Posted: June 02, 2005 at 2:04 PM

Crap, now because I was trying to edit, I bumped this to the next page and I have 2 important posts on the end of the first page that people probably won't bother to look at now, darn it. Why in the world can we not edit our own posts. Man... anyways. Please read my last 2 posts on page 1 regarding how I finally got a hold of Tech Support and how that went. Thanks.

Posted By: xenon2000
Date Posted: June 02, 2005 at 2:57 PM

https://www.scytek.net/Products/page/5000.htm

This is interesting. Even though they never replied to my emails. They must have read them, because shortly after I sent them an email about how my remote didn't have BLUE Leds like they pictured and had described in the product text. Now the same page has a missing image and ALL references to the BLUE LEDs have been removed from the descriptive text.

Here is what I had emailed them about the webpage:

"My remotes have green LEDs, not blue ones as listed on
your website. It also says it comes with the Scynet interface and
wizard software, which it did not. Came with pre-wired red LED instead
of a blue status LED. None of these things are a huge deal. Just
irratating that I bought this based on your website and it is
incorrect."

Though the webpage still states that it features the ScyNet Interface and wizard software, which mine did not come with. So not sure why they didn't edit that part. Thier crappy company website should have been another indicator to me about the quality of the company.

Posted By: Shrinktube4.0
Date Posted: June 02, 2005 at 4:26 PM

If you want to return it back to x10.com like I did with my alarm they will simply ask you what’s wrong with it, defective or whatever the problem it is causing it not to function properly, tell them what’s up with it, they will issue a RA number [return Authorization Number]for you to ship it back to them [prepaid of course on your behalf] but I will warn ahead of time, the RA number will be from the warehouse and the time you get it [because of my experience with x10] Will most likely be several days. When they receive it at their Warehouse you will be shipped a new one automatically; [this was a lie, they said this to me on the phone] they received it May 24 8:45 am.. I was tired of waiting so I called them today and wouldn’t you know it, it finally was shipped out today. It’s a slow boat from china but, they are taking care of it. I don’t like when a company deceives some one like this. It’s bad for their business and they will not get me to buy from ever again. One more thing you can get a refund just ask them. In your case seems you have no choice since it doesn’t perform so well as you expected to. And you must send all parts back including the harness for an exchange. I have noticed some times when you see an alarm and buy it because you like the way it looked or it had a certain feature on it, you buy it and for some reason it’s totally different
Then you have to figure out what’s going on, you find out the company has redesigned that certain model and nobody knew about what they have done, so of course every one Scratching their heads. I see there are a lot of good installers out here that have dealt with Scytek alarms, your model in particular, maybe one of them will see this and compare Their install with yours to see any differences.

Posted By: xenon2000
Date Posted: June 02, 2005 at 5:22 PM

Yeah, returning it is not an option. Every wire is soldered and heat shrinked and zip tied in place in tidy order. Relays are centralized, etc. Maybe a little extreme for a Geo. But I like it clean and sturdy.

Also, don't misunderstand me. That alarm works. And I will be switching back to Auto instead of using RPM sensing. Which seems to be the only buggy option on this alarm. Not worth trying another unit if they are not going to just swap the brain before getting the old one back. Personally I don't think this unit is defective in any way. I just think I don't like how it works. So I doubt swapping it would do any good. And at this point I don't plane on buying from X10 or Scytek ever again.

Take my experience however you want. The alarm works, but not as nicely as advertised. At least now people have more information on Scytek.