Advanced has stepped up the fight against unwanted false alarms with its new AlarmCalm false alarm management (FAM) solution. AlarmCalm comprises configuration software for Advanced’s fire systems and new alarm acknowledgement devices called AlarmCalm Buttons.
AlarmCalm provides control over alarm verification periods and investigation delays to outputs. It allows a site to be divided into false alarm management zones called Building Areas (up to 200 per panel or 40,000 per network). These are virtual areas that can be independent of fire zones and can share grouped, or have individual, FAM settings. There is no limit to the number of points in a Building Area and every device in the area can be configured precisely. Verification settings for a site can be applied quickly by assigning all common areas of a building with group settings, while allowing specific areas to have individual settings. Verification can be set to on or off, with different settings for day/night operation. Heat, smoke, multi-sensors and other inputs (call points or any input modules) can be used as verification inputs and set by device type or individually per point.
Once a signal is detected AlarmCalm starts a programmable ‘stage one’ verification time. At the end of this time if the signal is still present the system will go into full alarm. During this time the signal can be confirmed by mode or sensitivity change, for example an optical heat detector switching to heat to verify the signal, or by coincidence detection. Verification can occur simultaneously in multiple areas and users can set the maximum number of Building Areas in verification at any one time before a full fire condition is indicated.
