A method and systems for evacuating a building during an incident are provided. An exemplary method includes tracking location of personnel in the building, monitoring incident sensors, detecting an incident based, at least in part, on the incident sensors, activating alert systems, locating unevacuated personnel in the building, and displaying the location of the unevacuated personnel on a fire alarm control panel (FACP).

Methods and devices for a single wavelength fiber optic sensor system are described. Sensing is based on relative shift in spectral responses of two co-located fiber gratings (FBGs) within a fiber optic cable and measured at one measurement wavelength. Under a range of conditions of interest, the shift in spectral responses maintains the measurement wavelength within respective slopes of the spectral responses. A normalized difference in reflected power is used to desensitize the measurement from any variation in power of the single laser power and/or in loss through the fiber optic cable. Several pairs of co-located FBGs may be used within the same fiber optic cable, each pair used for sensing at a corresponding location. An OTDR system couples light pulses at the measurement wavelength to the fiber optic cable, and measures amplitudes and timing of corresponding reflected light pulses to perform the normalized difference.

Methods, devices, and systems for adjusting for air flow temperature changes in an aspirating smoke detector are described herein. In some examples, one or more embodiments include a blower configured to cause air to flow through the aspirating smoke detector, and a controller configured to determine a temperature of the air flowing through the aspirating smoke detector has changed by a particular amount and adjust a speed of the blower in response to compensate the air flowing through the aspirating smoke detector that has changed by the particular amount.

Devices, methods, and systems for verification of a visual inspection are described herein. One method for visual inspection verification of a fire alarm system having self-testing components includes using a visual inspection verification software mobile application on a mobile device, a technician selects one or more groups of fire alarm system components within areas of a building for visual inspection, wherein each self-testing fire alarm system component has an associated wireless beacon; and wherein each fire alarm system component having an associated wireless beacon emits a unique identifying signal which can be received by the mobile device when the technician moves the mobile device into a range corresponding to a visual distance of the technician to a particular fire alarm system component emitting the unique identifying signal to verify that a technician has been within the range corresponding to a visual distance of the technician to the particular component.

A fire detection system may include isolation circuit having an isolation switch coupled with a system line of the fire detection system and configured to isolate a first side of the system line from a second side of the system line. The isolation circuit may also include a controller coupled with the isolation switch. The controller may be configured to detect repetitive, intermittent short circuit activity on the system line and control the isolation switch based on this activity.

A method for the detection of restricted airflow to a smoke sensor in a central detector unit of an aspirating smoke detection system. An aspirator of the detector unit draws air into the central detector unit along a plurality of sampling pipes. A first portion of the air is directed along a sensing conduit via a filter to the smoke sensor, whilst a second portion of the air continues along a primary conduit and is not directed through the smoke sensor. A first flow meter is positioned on the sensing conduit, and a second flow rate meter is positioned on the primary conduit. A ratio of the flow rates measured by the first and second flow meters is calculated, and used to determine that the filter is restricting airflow to the smoke sensor when the ratio exceeds a predetermined threshold.

Methods and systems for performing a walk test for fire alarm systems using a mobile device are described herein. One fire alarm system, includes a system control panel fixedly positioned within a building for controlling a plurality of fire alarm system devices connected to the panel and positioned within the building, a mobile device wirelessly connected to the control panel, and a fire alarm system control application on the mobile device, wherein the fire alarm control system application gains access to the control panel and, therethrough, the plurality of fire alarm system devices and wherein the fire alarm control system application issues a command to a particular fire alarm system device of the plurality of fire alarm system devices to perform a particular test or maintenance function and the control panel relays the command to the particular fire alarm system device.

A method is specified for automatic testing of a fire alarm system. The method is carried out by a device in the fire alarm system functioning as a panel. In this method, during a recording mode, fire detectors are triggered in turn and the reactions resulting from the triggering (recording mode reactions) of the panel are stored. During a test mode executed later in time, for example as a result of a firmware update of the panel, reactions resulting during the test mode (test mode reactions) are compared with the reactions stored during the recording mode. With discrepancies or an insufficient match an error message is generated.

A fire protection system 100 includes one or more fire protection components 12 that can each generate messages indicating an event. Messages are determined to be indicative of either critical or non-critical events. Data associated with messages indicative of critical events is stored in a first collection of event data 32, while data associated with messages indicative of non-critical events is stored in a second different collection of event data 32.

Devices, methods, and systems for a self-testing fire sensing device are described herein. One device includes an adjustable particle generator and a variable airflow generator configured to generate an aerosol density level sufficient to trigger a fire response without saturating an optical scatter chamber and the optical scatter chamber configured to measure a rate at which the aerosol density level decreases after the aerosol density level has been generated, determine an airflow rate from an external environment through the optical scatter chamber based on the measured rate at which the aerosol density level decreases, and determine whether the self-testing fire sensing device is functioning properly based on the fire response and the determined airflow rate.