https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky5Hr2orgTk
A weird thing is that the strobes are not hooked up directly to notification appliance circuits. Separate “visual notification control units”(kinda similar to NAC boosters) are used to power them up instead.
Really? About time the rest of the world started realizing just why strobes are mandated in North America I’d say (& for that matter mandate them for their own systems).
It took them this long?
光警報装置 (kaho.or.jp)
It seems like Japanese fire safety authorities published guidelines about using strobes in fire alarm systems in 2016… Still far much later than North America and Europe.
Mhm: visual signals in North America have been required since the 1960s (though strobes have only been mandated since the 1970s, & only since the 1990s have they been required to be 15 candela at minimum: prior to this most were only 1.5 candela).
Even though the exit signs in Japan do have strobes in them that activate when the alarm system is triggered. It’s nice to see their NA’s have strobes in them as well since most of the systems in Japan are mostly just speakers placed around the building.
Although here in the USA (Probably Canada too) Exit Signs can never be turned off. At least the ones in Japan automatically switch on when there is a fire.
Not only do their exit signs sometimes have strobes, but they also sometimes have speakers that play voice messages (often in both English & Japanese), both to help guide occupants to exits (System Sensor tried something similar with their “ExitPoint” sounder, but apparently it wasn’t that successful since some years back they discontinued it).
It actually seems like only just recently have they started mandating strobes according to the first post of this very topic.