Lots of Notifier, some simplex, some Gamewell, Fire lite, and a few Siemens.
OMG same here I actually met some one who works there
In my area, they have lots of Notifier, Fire-Lite, Simplex, & EST. My middle school had an EST system. My high school had Simplex, and my elementary school had Simplex but when I was there, it got replaced with EST.
In my area, there is mostly Honeywell and EST. There seem to be lots of Fire-Lite/ADT/Tyco Integrated Security systems in my area, with a couple of SK systems. the public library uses a very new Simplex 4100ES system, with 4099 pulls, and TrueAlert speaker strobes. Another older building has a conventional Gamewell system. Most of the public schools use the same installer, so they all have the Notifier 640 or 320 panels. most of the systems in my area are addressable even though there are not that big of buildings. once you go to my high school, you enter a different district, which uses a different supplier. They went with an EST3 with voice evac, and mass notification with “ALERT” speaker strobes instead of the traditional “FIRE” N/A’s. In summary, the main brands are Honeywell (Gamewell, ADT/Fire-Lite/TIS, Notifier, Johnson Controls) and EST. The only space that has a simplex system is the library.
In the downtown Dallas area, any Honeywell brand, and every once in a while some EST and Simplex, and pretty much every government building and airport has a Siemens system.
EST
HONEYWELL (Mostly crap “Security” Fire Panels.)
NOTIFIER
SIMPLEX
WHEELOCK
While most systems are Simplex, we have several other brands around. There are a good few that have lots of mixed devices, as well as lots of 80’s/90’s systems still going strong!
It is a mix of everything really. Can’t pinpoint one clear winner when only one building in the town has it. (It’s a very small town, so there are few buildings with actual fire alarm systems)
Honeywell has a decent presence in my hometown. The public school district uses Notifier (replacing older Edwards systems presumably). I see plenty of FireLite/Silent Knight/Gamewell-FCI in restaurants and smaller-scale buildings like it. EST has been popping up here recently, some newer buildings have EST systems in them. Simplex is mostly restricted to larger malls, though a local library has a small Simplex system.
It’s mostly colleges/universities in my area that use Simplex systems that are available in my area but every library I find around here is a honeywell system and any new stores/ large restaurants (most small ones don’t have a system) also uses those. Seems like only the medical campuses and large buildings in the big city use EST.
My state, Massachusetts, pretty much has everything. I’ll narrow it down a bit.
Hopkinton: Silent Knight and EST
Northbridge: mostly Simplex with some Honeywell systems here and there
Bellingham: Fire-Lite and Simplex. There are some old Simplex systems, but the one at second elementary had a Fire-Lite MS-9200UD. The fire station also has Fire-Lite, and I remember from a video I took when I was around 8.
Franklin: Honeywell and EST
Sorry to bump this topic, but I made a chart of the systems in my area. And the history of them.
First of all, this chart goes over the history of the most popular FA brands in my area. I organized the brands in each period based on popularity. The most popular brand of each period is listed first, and then the second most popular, and so on. Keep in mind that I only listed the 4 most common brands in each period, if my area had at least 4 different brands during that period.
In this chart, I go over how common every alarm brand is in my area today. I only counted systems that are currently in service. Keep in mind that I live in an area with under 100,000 people.
Simplex and EST are pretty common
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Simplex, honeywell, system sensor, notifier, firelite, gamewell, hochiki, Edwards, nohmi, Ge, Cemen, asenware, siemens, and wheelock in thailand
EST, Notifier, Firelite, or some random panels in Los Angeles
I also noticed a trend in alarm systems in my area. Like I said, Edwards was pretty dominant, but there was still tons of other companies. Canada’s big companies in the day were Edwards, Simplex, Chubb Fire Security (separate at the time), Gamewell, Mirtone, and Pyrotronics.
Areas by the US border usually had a mixture of systems and manufacturers in buildings, while cities and towns more inland had Edwards usually. Goverment buildings seemed to have a contract with Edwards, any Federal building or Provincal definitley had Edwards systems at one point; Ottawa’s parliment buildings had an Edwards 2 stage with Edwards 333-D bells. I think now replaced due to the renovations ongoing to the entire parliment block.
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In my area, schools generally use EST. Notifier and Fire-Lite are also common. System sensor NAs are commonly used on the Notifier/Fire Lite systems, as well as the EST systems in school (Usually in portables) although Publix is an exception, using Wheelock NAs instead.
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Forgot some here. Also there are several stores that use Bosch/Radionics, some also use Honeywell Ademco. I have seen a few DMP systems out in the wild, but only a handful. same with Silent Knight. EST isn’t that common here, but there are some that exist.
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Sorry for reposting, however a lot of systems have changed brands, so I felt like it was appropriate to change my post. A lot of the Notifier in my area is being changed to EST. All of the elementary schools, and both of the middle schools are undergoing renovations, including fire alarm replacements. All of these so far have been EST4 systems, with mass notification LED speaker strobes. Most of the systems have been fully replaced, however in both of the middle schools, there are still 640’s in both with advances. Recently, a new installer has popped up, with siemens systems. A lot of the apartment building around me have replaced their old EST systems (EST3s with genesis) with new siemens desigio fire safety modular (what a mouthful) systems. All use wheelock LED speaker strobes, and remote speakers in the units. Now EST is the most prevalent in my area, with multiple stores, schools, and buildings using it now. In second is Notifier, which still has many buildings, however most are being slowly replaced. Siemens is in third,
with most of the apartments around me, and some buildings. Then there is Fire-Lite, Gamewell, and SK, which all have 5ish systems in my area. Last is Simplex, with only one building using it in my entire area. The local library uses a Simplex 4100+ but they are planning on replacing it during spring break time. They released a statement saying that they will be doing renovations over the summer including “upgrades to the life safety and fire alarm systems”. The statement did not say what brand they would use, however it is almost guaranteed to be EST or siemens. I know they are not upgrading to a newer simplex panel, because they also stated that they were extremely dissatisfied with their current brand’s customer service (Simplex).
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It’s always interesting to hear what other areas tend to have and how the brands that are used change over time. That’s why I started this topic. EST/Edwards was pretty popular in my area in the 90’s but the mostly went away until very recently. I have seen a few of their newer systems now. The most common in my area BY FAR continues to be Siemens- as it has been for the past few decades. Not a whole lot has changed since I posted the chart above, other than a few more Autocall, Edwards, and Siemens systems being added around my area. There are a few new buildings being built in my area so I’m interested to see what those have.
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If I were writing in this thread in the 90s. I would’ve said that Simplex was the most common by far. Almost every school district in the Portland metro area had some sort of Simplex system then Simplex started to lose popularity probably because of their service which caused other brands to thrive. Now they only have one school district in the metro area that still installs Simplex
Here’s the updated version of my response in this thread,
Simplex is found more commonly in large buildings (such as high rises, heath care (which almost all the hospitals have Simplex) and occasionally I have found some smaller Simplex Systems. But Simplex is less common then when I previously wrote in this thread.
Autocall is non existent haven’t found a single Autocall system.
Notifier still common (long way since the 80s were Notifier systems were really only installed in Hotels)
Same goes for SK and FireLite (SK coming a long way since the 90s, got popular in the 2000s and 2010s and there still popular)
Potter has been getting its step in the door recently. Seen a few Potter systems out there.
Gamewell FCI is just stagnant, There we’re quite a few FCI
Edwards/EST feels more stagnant recently. There’s a good amount of EST systems replaced other brands
Siemens: Kinda has been stagnant but they have some buildings that have their equipment. Not too popular from my understanding
ESL: I can only think of one ESL system that’s still kicking, there almost extinct
JCI Notifier: There’s one collage that has a campus load of JCI Notifier systems, but there was one in Downtown Portland that got replaced by a Notifier Inspire panel
Honeywell: Completely extinct, There was 2 buildings that had Honeywell systems and one at PDX was replaced by a Siemens Rebranded EST system (which I believe is now just a Standard EST system) and another building was renovated was replaced by a SK system
Siemens Rebranded EST: There are remains of these systems (PDX yes, Oregon Convention Center, I’m not entirely sure). Really only a few places had these systems
Bosch: You would never find these systems outside of retail. Fred Meyer, Walmart, WinCo (they been doing SK since the mid 2010s), Lowe’s (still has some Bosch/Radionics systems) and some smaller retail stores. Even in the retail world, Bosch is losing popularity, WinCo started doing SK while Lowe’s started to do FireLite (and SK what I have heard). Leaving Fred Meyer and Walmart still using Bosch.
Honeywell Vista (Resdio): Very small buildings have them and not too common outside of Downtown Gresham. Some retail stores might have them.
Hotchiki: Non existent, have never seen a single Hotchiki system, the closest thing to a Hotchiki system is older SK and Simplex detectors.
Fike: Only one system installed, it replaced a EST system.
ADT: only a few retail stores have ADT systems, it seems that ADT used to be more common since I have heard about old ADT equipment in Portland but ADT is only in a few retail stores.
Here’s the NA brands or some extras
System Sensor: Extremely common, used to be rare back in the 80s and 90s but now you will find them everywhere. With the SpectrAlert Advance and L-Series being the most dominant devices (haven’t seen any LED devices yet), with the SpectrAlert Classic being common as well (becoming less due to replacements happening) most commonly seen on Honeywell systems (FireLite, Notifier,SK, and GFCI) and even seen them on Potter systems and a Simplex system. The MultiAlert devices are extremely rare to find. As Gentex was dominating in the 90s
Wheelock: Used to be common in the 90s and 2000s but System Sensor undoubtedly took over. These were most common on Simplex systems out of all things, the Simplex branch used a lot of Wheelock products back then, now they use Simplex TrueAlerts and TrueAlert ESs, Wheelock was common on older SK systems in the 2000s, and a few 90s FireLite systems. Now Wheelock devices are typically installed on newer Siemens, Some FireLite and SK, and the occasional Edward’s. Now the only places I see modern Wheelock devices installed are Fred Meyer stores, Walgreens and PDX (EST system but has Wheelock devices) with a some replacement devices on already existing systems (Exceeders on Simplex system replacing RSSs, A Eluxa replacing a E50, Eluxas replacing what ever alarms are inside a mall tendent. I do see Wheelock maybe getting popular with Potter switching to Eluxa devices. The ASs, NSs, E70s, E90s and RSSs are the most common but becoming less common as time goes on. CH-70s are a common choice for hospitals. As for newer devices, the Exceeders can be found but not as commonly as the older devices are, LED Exceeders aren’t very common and same with the Eluxas. The Z-Series isn’t too common either (only found like 2 systems with Z-Series devices) The older style LSM products can be found from time to time same with the first Gen RS. As for frosted strobes, those were very rare, as Oregon back in the 70s and 80s, visual signals were an after thought. So 34Ts became more common to see than 7002Ts. I mainly saw them on older Simplex systems from ‘90 and ‘91 but that’s it.
Gentex: It was the go to brand for AVs in the 90s being installed on a lot of 90s Notifier and FCI systems with a few Older FireLite. Oddly enough the GOSs were more popular here with about 4 systems that has GOSs vs 1 SHG. Gentex lost a considerable amount of popularity to System Sensor and Wheelock in the 2000s with only a few installs like one in a doughnut shop with a FireLite system and one healthcare facility that has them on a Simplex system. Gentex devices have found their way back onto systems with Potter systems being installed but with Potter going to Wheelock, I can only see retrofits or deficiency replacements being a thing for Gentex devices
Edwards: Most Common devices are the Xenon Genesis but there’s a few Integrity installs. Outside of EST systems, there’s only 3 EST devices installed on non EST systems. One on a Notifier system (replacement of a existing EST system that had first gen Genesis but what happened the school got renovated and they put in more Genesis due to it being Notifier already), One on a Potter system (Replaced a EST system, except they used System Sensor devices for the expansion), and one on a Simplex system (I really don’t know what happened, The building had a Simplex system originally judging by the parking garage and they renovated the building and put EST signals in on a Simplex system) (what’s missing at this point is Siemens, Faraday or Federal Signal signals on a Simplex system.
Simplex: TrueAlert signals and TrueAlert ES signals are common. The older 4903 and 4904 strobes can be found occasionally albeit not very common. 4903 Horn Strobes are hard to come by, 4904 strobes are more common, 4903 speaker strobes if you know where you are looking but also not very common. 2901 horns you would find either 9838s or 9840s but don’t expect anything older. 2903s are extremely rare and I don’t think there were many systems installed, remember Oregon was horrendous on having visual signals back in the 70s and 80s. Also by extension, 4050-80s are non existent. There’s one system with 2904s but that’s it
Faraday: outside of Simplex rebranded and Siemens rebranded Faraday, Faraday is extremely rare. There’s one system with Faraday chimes still kicking arround.
Federal Signal: Extremely rare, Only saw one system with Federal Signal AVs
Amseco: like Federal Signal, extremely rare. Only saw one system with Federal Signal AVs
SpaceAge: Non existent. There might’ve been one system with VA4s but I believe parts of that system is currently in a store. AV32s are most likely non existent
Detectors:
System Sensor: Extremely common, with Honeywell systems being popular, I see a ton of Honeywell detectors. For conventional detectors I see mostly 1400s and I3s. Another weird thing about Portland is that ion detectors were more popular than photoelectric detectors. System Sensor has dominated since the 90s. Even Simplex rebranded 1400s can be seen.
Hotchiki: Used to be more common with SK systems and older Simplex systems but now it’s becoming less and less. The Simplex system are getting replaced while the SK systems are staying for now
Apollo: only seen one system with their detectors. Very hard to come by.