The question is in the title. I know of several Siemens systems in my area from the early 2000s that use Siemens mechanical horn/strobes. They did obviously have electronic horns pretty early on, but it seems like they also continued using mechanical horns for quite a while. In fact, some older Cerberus Pyrotronics systems from the 90s in my area have electronic horns, while a few Siemens systems from the 2000s have mechanical horns. As far as I can tell, Siemens never stopped making them until they had to stop making all of the NAs due to the lawsuit settlement.
It seems like it. Siemens did discontinue the mechanical horn in 2007 when they received the lawsuits. Now today in 2026, Siemens is independently able to make their own alarms again. They now fell under the same trend of only making electronic horns like other companies did. If Siemens didn’t receive the lawsuit, they still would have stopped on their own because the aim of today’s fire alarm companies is to make alarms drain less power. Mechanical horns eat a lot of power. Who would still make them now? Companies have already started ditching xenon strobes now. One day xenon strobes will also become obselete.
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I totally agree with you on all of that. I’m really curious on how Simens’ evolution of devices would have been different without the lawsuit. From what I’ve seen, technicians seem to be liking the new ACEND devices a lot more than the rebranded Wheelock and Eaton devices. They’re also going to much more advanced devices, with the new addressable ACEND devices to compete with the TrueAlertES line.
I would argue that they are already obsolete. The LED devices are better in every way now, from current draw, to size, to reliability, to flexibility with candela settings. Really the only brand left with xenon strobes in their mainstream devices is JCI. I’ve seen a lot of recent Autocall systems (and even some Simplex systems) with Eaton Eluxa devices instead.
Wait I believe Gentex still makes their commander 3/4s even after they released the commander 5 and I don’t think they announced anything about discontinuing them.
Yep, & yet as you said there are some companies, particularly Simplex, who still hang onto xenon strobes despite LED strobes having come a long way from their early days in the 2010s (though with Simplex perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised given who owns them).
They still make the Commander 3, but the Commander 4 was discontinued upon the Commander 5 being released since the latter is meant as a replacement for the former.
I believe Wheelock still makes the 31T. If you’re referring to DC mechanical horns, then Siemens was probably last, since Gentex and Simplex’s mechanical horns were rebranded from Faraday and Wheelock’s DC mechanical horns were discontinued around the time UL 1971 took effect.
Ah yes, that’s right: Federal Signal also still makes the Vibratone 350 as well.