Give your remote control an extra button...or two!

On this blog alone you’ve probably come across the word “security” a couple of dozen times – and there’s a very good reason for that.  In the early 1940s, the influential psychology professor Abraham Maslow came up with the now-famous Hierarchy of Needs, which depicts in pyramid-form the basic human needs in order of importance (with the bottom of the pyramid being the most important).  In this hierarchy, Safety – which includes security of body, resources, family and the like – is ranked as being one of the most important human needs, second only to physiological needs such as eating and breathing.  That’s how paramount security is.

The aim of this blog is to help you be more security-conscious by arming you with useful tools, tips and guidelines and by providing new and innovative ways of assuring your own safety and the safety of your loved ones and possessions.  In today’s post, we will be looking at a useful feature inherent in some of our remote receivers, the so-called “shift” function.

What it is

 The shift-button functionality allows the user to artificially increase the number of buttons on a multi-button remote control by using a two-button combination.  In other words, activating a certain gate motor function will now involve pressing two buttons instead of one.

The Benefits

Although the CENTURION NOVA range of transmitters uses secure rolling code technology which makes code-grabbing impossible, making use of combinations rather than single-button activations is bound to up the security ante even further.  In addition, the shift system allows a three button transmitter to gain an extra function and operate four functions and likewise a four button transmitter gains two extra buttons and can operate six functions. 

Another benefit of using the shift button system is that it requires both hands to operate the two button combination.  How many times have you not activated the Holiday Lockout function by accident and was left scratching your head as to why you suddenly can’t open our gate?  With the shift button system, this is far less likely to happen as it now takes two hands to enable the Lockout.

How to do it

With your receiver in Learn Mode, simply press and hold the shift button, and then press one of the other buttons to create a new button.  This combination will then be pressed whenever the associated function needs to be activated.