Friday, July 25, 2025

Addressable Fire Alarm systems once seen as great advancment over Convntional Systems . But now proving to be a legacy problem as systems age and parts are no longer available

 Addressable systems are fantastic when it comes to there flexibility especially in large buildings and multiple properties .they let you know exactly know which device is in alarm or trouble. 

Because with old conventional systems in some cases you could have as many as 20 or more devices on a run and trying to find the bad one can be a real pain finding it.

 

But as Analog Addressable systems are now going into their 2nd and 3rd generation of design

The legacy systems in the field  are becoming a Night Mare for Building owners .

Because of mergers and changes in protocols how panels communicate  in the industry many parts are now no longer available.

Take the case of   Silent Knight and Fire Lite

Silent Knight offered 2 protocols SK and Hochiki  Silent Knight now has dropped the Hochiki Protocol

and Fire lite has dropped Clip Protocol for Hyper Speed.

So now you as a building owner who has a 25 year old system who needs parts can not get them.

So you have choices.  Try and find old stock expensive or replace the whole system.

Which is thousands of dollars.  But what many are doing is eliminating devices and bypassing them  and  going without protection in certain areas.

Not a good situation at all. But they are doing it.

So you say well the building owner should have been told and prepared for the systems to be upgraded

But when you put the wrong protocol in even 5 years ago spent $20K for a  new system and now its going to cost you another $20K or more  how do you call that fair.

So  because no one has been keeping their eyes on the situation we now have unsafe buildings because of it.

 

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