Oh ok I did not know what you meant sorry
There was a fire alarm at my college that went off after they upgraded from 4051s to SpectAlert Speaker Strobes. That was the first time I heard a speaker/strobe.
I heard a fire lite voice evac in a system with spectralert advance spkr-stbs, and most of the system was spectralert advance hs’s.
I hear voice evac with almost every fire drill. Our library and cafetorium have speaker/strobes with voice evac. Ours is a version of the Audiosone VECP message.
Does your whole school have voice evac or just those places?
Yes I have heard voice evac at the Omni Hotel in Philadelphia, it was a Simplex system(unknown panel) The NAs were Wheelock speaker-strobes and some Life Alarm speakers. It did 1 Simplex style whoop and played an odd message one that I have never heard of before. It was a male voice which said " May I have your attention please, a fire has been reported in this building, while this report is being verified the message requests that you please proceed to the nearest exit stair and await further instructions".
It’s just those places. All hallways and Administration have horn/strobes as well as portables. Our classrooms and restrooms have strobes. Everything is Mircom except for speaker/strobes-those are AMSECO.
For three years, I lived in dorms at Rutgers that had Simplex 4100 voice evacuation systems with the rectangular 4903 speakers, so I heard the older-style Simplex slow whoop and voice message numerous times during those years. Was pleasantly surprised at how quiet it was the first time I heard it - especially considering there were speakers in the rooms, which initially made me anxious. They were still able to wake me up the few times that it was necessary (though I’m glad that never happened during my freshman year when I had a speaker/strobe in my room). Other than that, I heard a Cerberus Pyrotronics voice evac system at the Penn State conference center once, and more recently heard an outdoor SpectrAlert Advance speaker go off at a local high-rise retail/apartment building. I forget if the latter system was Fire-Lite or Notifier - what I do remember is that the whoop sounded like something out of an 80’s video game.
I’ve read about a visual version of voice evac. Monitors that give a alphanumerical or pictorial message. Useful for deaf people or those that missed the audible announcement.
They love Cerberus Pyrotronics at Penn State! I’d say roughly 75% of the buildings I’ve been in have them.
I would love to see that if it is possible. I think it would be pretty cool.
I know Simplex has displays (the text looks like alarm clock characters; kind of) that can scroll through messages during an alarm activation.
I’ve never seen that before either so I’m sure that it was very cool to see in person.
This came from their website:
Ah! It reminds me of something we had in my high school, though I’m not sure if the board was also used for fire alarm instructions.