they probably still use MS Paint for their initial designs to this day
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The outdoor speaker strobes do not look like MS Paint products, since slides 18 and 20 have close-up photos of these devices. I also exported the photos, and although the strobes are placed weirdly on the outdoor devices, they are placed directly over dummy strobes that were likely present in the physical prototypes. This includes the off-center ceiling speaker strobe, despite it appearing darker than the speakers and wall speaker strobes.
Another odd feature I noticed from exporting the images is that the indoor ceiling speaker strobe with a dummy strobe in the center actually has a candela selector set to 115 candela that is obstructed by the strobe lens edited over it.
I recently saw this thread, which contains specifications for the pulse durations. Specifically, it appears that a 0.02 second dropout indicates AV synchronization and a 0.07 second dropout indicates audible silence synchronization. Could there be some value in the middle (such as 0.05 seconds) that causes T4 synchronization? There is also a 0.02 second on-pulse at the beginning that starts synchronization, but changing this value or sending the pulse twice might cause the horn to output T4. The fact that the strobe starts before the horn may be a sign that the latter mechanism is used.
If this can be legally achieved, it may be worth experimenting with this to figure out how to synchronize these horns on T4. It would be interesting if the fire alarm community activated this functionality before System Sensor officially released it.
The LED speaker strobes have now been CSFM listed. The listing mentions some models coming with a âtrimâ accessory for both wall and ceiling speaker strobes (indicated by -T at the end of the model), which was not mentioned in the ESD slides. This may refer to the standard L-Series trim rings, although I am unsure why speaker strobes would be pre-assembled with trim rings but not horn strobes.
Will the first batch of the LED speaker strobes also be CSFM listed as well if itâs an accessory that can have the trim rings on it? I think theyâll be able to do it to the horn strobe models as well since itâs a very similar design.
It looks like it will be, but it seems weird that speaker strobes would need to be preassembled with trim rings but not horn strobes, since I would expect speaker strobes to be more effective at covering a backbox than horn strobes. This might be related to the dual UL/ULC listing, since most of the devices that are preassembled with trim plates are FIRE/FEU devices.
The outdoor horns/strobes and indoor speaker strobes have also been UL listed. Like the SpectrAlert Advance series, the outdoor remote horns will only be produced in red, despite the slides only showing a white outdoor horn (which was probably a horn strobe modified with MS Paint). There are currently no signs of listings for 4-wire horn strobes, outdoor speakers, chimes, low frequency sounders, or ceiling tiles.
We now have images on how the speakers and outdoor devices look. The following were taken from Honeywellâs L-Series page
Outdoor compact horn strobes:
Outdoor compact strobes:
Indoor ceiling speaker strobes:
At the time of writing this comment, the outdoor ceiling devices, outdoor non-compact wall devices, outdoor and wall speaker devices do not have pictures available.
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I think those ceiling speaker strobes are actually outdoor speaker strobes that were mistakenly uploaded as the indoor speaker strobe images, since they have 3 screws like the Advance version and the off-center strobe consistent with the ESD presentation, while the L-Series speaker strobes have a single screw for the mounting plate. Also, I do not see any voltage test points on this device, while the ESD presentation showed voltage test points on the indoor speaker strobes but not on the outdoor devices. The manual can be found here. The indoor ceiling speaker strobes feature the same locking mechanism as the original L-Series, so the image on Honeywellâs website is incorrect. Also, the wall speaker strobes have the same appearance as they did in the ESD presentation, and the strobe is still not listed for FWR on this manual.
According to the individual product pages, it appears that the outdoor strobes and horn strobes have the same candela settings and are listed for both wall and ceiling mounting, similar to the Advance series, but the low and high candela settings have now been combined into a single device.
Also, the Wayback Machine link you sent repeatedly reloads the page until the browser fails. It looks like the original page requires an automatic reload before functioning.
Finally, for reference, although the outdoor horn strobe photos have not been released, the manual for the outdoor strobes and horn strobes can be found here and the manual for outdoor horns can be found here. It looks like there will be a strobe with âBâ colored housing (as opposed to red or white) which might be blue or black.
Sounds about right for modern Honeywell
My guess is blue. System Sensorss model number for the SpectrAlert Advance strobes they made for BluePoint was SBK; so with the discontinuance of the outdoor Advance, SGBKLED fits the model syntax for a LED L-Series replacement model.
Those are even uglier than the standard LED L-Series in my opinion
That Ceiling mount Weatherproof speaker strobe, The strobe is like off centered. Worse then the ceiling Genesis speaker strobe and ceiling mount L-Series Low frequency sounders.
The off-center strobe on the outdoor ceiling speaker strobe is probably for consistency with the wall-mount version. I think the L-Series low frequency sounder strobes are off-center for a similar reason, since the low frequency sounders need to be mountable to a single gang backbox.
Gonna admit, these things are continuing to grow on me a bit.
I think Iâve seen these on a brand new apartment build on their terrace. I didnât know what they were at first, but now seeing this photo, it clarifies things lol.
Wanted to chime in with some first hand knowledge.
The LED series will replace all L series and SpectrAlert devices by (allegedly) Q2 2025. As of July 2024, only the indoor horn/strobes are available. Honeywell no longer has a supply chain secured for the parts for the Xenon bulbs, so they will not be available in the long term.
The biggest change for the outdoor models is that the horn/strobes will now be sealed units with wire leads rather than a pin/plate connector. This will hopefully improve their durability. Not sure on the speakers but I assume they will remain a base/device pair as shown in the manual above.
A warning for anyone designing around the new LED strobes - while the steady state current is a vast improvement (17mA @ 15 cd), the in rush current required to charge the capacitors on the LED drivers is unexpectedly high. Like each device draws 90-100 mA for a few milliseconds upon startup. This will trip overload protection on NACs that have it and can cause weird behavior or delayed start-up on NACs that donât.
There will be a technical bulletin published detailing this issue in the next few months, and hardware revisions are planned to reduce the inrush current, but it sounds like even with the revisions you will be able to put fewer low candela devices on a circuit than you could with the L series, which is unfortunate.
At higher candelas (110+) the LED series outperformed the L series even with the current driver design.
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Ah! A brand new fire alarm with wire leads! I havenât seen those types of alarms being made since they switched to screw terminals in 1990s.
Not sure why they didnât just add a rubber gasket somewhere like on other weatherproof devices (which would allow outdoors devices to have mostly the same design as indoor devices) but okay.
That is unfortunate. With all of these issues, System Sensor devices are seeming less and less appealing.
Hey: thatâs just progress, & they should still work well for their intended use.
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Looks like Commander 5s also donât support FWR