The lawsuit was over in 2015. Wheelock had been forcing them to rebrand their own alarms because Siemens lost the lawsuit for patent infringement since Wheelock thought the Faraday signals they used were too similar in design to their signals which is something I don’t get but apparently the judge sided with Wheelock and they were forced to discontinue their own line just to make rebranded Wheelock alarms for the next 8 years as part of an agreement that was forced upon them. I originally thought the lawsuit was 10 years meaning it would be over in 2017 (I wanna say I got the 10 years time from a video of NewAgeServerAlarm’s but I’m not sure) but it was 8 years so it was 2015. Even though they were released from the agreement, they still spent 2 years rebranding Wheelock devices and never restarted their own line and since they are doing that, I don’t see them ever coming out with their own line again.
Faraday on the other hand, makes fire alarm panels for small-to-mid-size applications, along with its own line of initiating devices.
I read online from the court documents that it didn’t end till 2018. But as Simplex 4051 mentioned, I’d doubt they’d ever make their own NAs again for various reasons. They’ve already lost so much of the market because of the fallout of that suit so to speak, and if they were to make such a move it could be risky in either direction.
I suspect Wheelock will continue to use Siemens as the “Scion” of their company. In other words, it provides Wheelock a way to dump older and poorly-recieved products (like the Z-series and the E-50/60) onto Siemens, who can in turn offer them as a lower-cost alternative to the Exceder-series. And it’s clearly doing both companies some good, because I commonly see Siemens systems in my area with Exceder and/or Z-series devices.
Toyota discontinued Scion in 2017, which seems fitting. Also, Siemens isn’t a “part” or subsidiary of Wheelock. Siemens themselves install large addressable systems. I’ve seen mostly voice-evac systems from them around here. I remember when Wheelock devices were paired with Notifier systems. Now you just see Honeywell everywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lawsuit is the only thing bringing in revenue these days.
I don’t think they can/will invest in designing a new line of NAs, although if I was Siemens, I would start rebranding somebody else’s NAs (probably Gentex) as soon as the ruling allowed just to spite Wheelock.
I’ve seen a lot less of their systems around here since they started using Wheelock NAs. In fact, Wheelock in general hasn’t been too common here since before the ZNS came out. But maybe that’s not the case in other areas.
I think even Notifier systems which have historically used Wheelock NA’s are switching to SS NA’s. I also think I’ve only seen one or two Siemens systems in the wild, and a lot more Fire lite and Simplex.
I’ve seen a few Notifier systems with Wheelock Z-Series or E70/E90 signals, but System Sensor has really taken over the Honeywell systems as the primary notification choice in my area. Some (usually older) Notifier+Gentex systems aren’t too hard to find though.
As for Siemens, I don’t see the reason for them to switch manufacturers. If Wheelock devices are working fine for them, then so be it. Personally, I feel like that entire lawsuit could have been corporate retaliation from Wheelock. Before the Faraday buy-out, Cerberus Pyrotronics and its sister Gamewell exclusively used Wheelock devices. Losing that big of a contract surely must have financially hurt Wheelock.
Makes sense, considering System Sensor is a subsidiary of Honeywell, as is Notifier (and Fire-Lite, Silent Knight and Gamewell-FCI), and the company is moving towards brand integration, including giving more prominence to the Honeywell name.
Oh I’m sorry. That was my mistake. I thought a previous post said that there was a Siemens system that used Exceeders but I misread that and it was actually Notifier. My bad.
Pretty sure this is one of the big reasons Siemens doesn’t brand Exceders very often (which are doing better than ZNS and E50/60 signals as far as I can tell). Wheelock likely picks a handful of models, sends a list to Siemens, and lets Siemens pick from that list. If Siemens wasn’t offered an Exceder model, they’d likely have to pay full price for it AND find a way to profit by selling it, making a Siemens-branded Exceder more expensive than the Wheelock Exceder or a Siemens-branded ZNS. Just a guess, but I don’t think it’s far off the mark.
Also, if I really wanted to “spite” Wheelock, if I were Siemens, I would have been quietly preparing a brand new totally unique line of signals using entirely original technology (to prevent future patent claims), and as soon as the legal contract expired, immediately dumped Wheelock and released my new line of signals at a low price to all my distributors. Politics of the lawsuit aside, if you want to spite a company like that the way to go is show them you can bounce back from whatever constraints they had set on you.
The issue I see with that, however, is the fact that Wheelock is probably the single most powerful fire alarm company out there, at least when it comes to notification appliances. I mean, I feel like Wheelock is growing in popularity while companies like Simplex and EST are losing longtime customers in favor of either Honeywell/Honeywell, Wheelock/Honeywell, or Wheelock/Siemens setups. I don’t know the full financial implications of the lawsuit, but if Siemens is able to make some money off of the Z- and E-series devices, that seems like their best bet in the short term.