In 2018. A little birdie told me that wireless addressable notification was on the way, along with some other exciting goodies like touchscreen interfaces for Onyx panels. Stay tuned…
It would seem all a system would have to do now is have each signal paired to it on a wireless SLC, and when the system goes into alarm, simply give the signal to sound. Then when the system is silenced, a signal would be given to shut the alarms up.
I’d imagine each device would be outfitted with a battery of some sort, hopefully a heavy-duty lithium one that can be easily charged or changed.
But then comes the issue of regular service calls to change the battery in each signal. I know if I were an installer I’d loathe doing a service call like that.
Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about wireless notification. Maybe it would benefit from an LED strobe, rather than the usual xenon ones.
We’ve heard about this as well on the Gamewell-FCI end, as it will also be available to us, and our office was pretty stoked about it after attending this year’s conference. Honeywell has been putting a lot into wireless lately and it finally seems to me reaching a decent level of maturity.
I don’t expect we will use this for more than a tiny fraction of applications, because wireless in general still has some major drawbacks, namely battery replacement every several years, and having to survey the site for interference and worrying that a cell tower may be put in next door, making the system ineffective.
Still, for a few applications where owners have no interest in seeing wires pulled, this will be an excellent option.
I believe that the module will be activated wirelessly, but that all a/v signals will be wired to the module. I think the module will have some sort of power supply with battery backup, and the a/v devices will still be wired, but not physically to a panel.
But this is more than a NAC extender. You can control these individually, so if only a certain area needed to be alerted, the panel could activate just that one area. Also, with this, you wouldn’t be putting all your eggs in one basket. NAC extenders would extend a NAC from a panel, and it can be a long line of extensions. With wireless, there would be many individual wirelessly controlled and supervised NACs. This could also make additions and expansions way easier.
The module in the photo is the Wireless SYNC module. Connects back to the NAC output and SLC loop. Think of it like a smart output control module and it keeps the non-wireless and wireless devices all sync’d.
Yes each Wireless AV has its own SLC address making it completely intelligent. Battery life is dependent of how often the devices are tested but should be good for 2+ years in standby mode.
Looks like you can use any AV with it? It’s just an intelligent wireless module/power supply that you hook up to any conventional strobe? Or is it an all in one unit?
They need some sort of wireless speaker as well, 90% of the work I do is voice anymore it seems.
Nope. Wireless devices operate in a wide frequency band allowing to jump around when signal is low or being compromised. Also its recently passed strict internal Cybersecurity tests so I can be used in government/military facilities.