Southern Fried Life Safety
Moss Landing is a new residential development located on the Pamlico River in Washington, N.C.
An auxiliary input for use in monitoring other devices comes standard on the FireWatch IP Communicator device. At Moss Landing, the input was used to monitor pump stations for trouble conditions via the Internet, helping S.C.I. to eliminate more costly phone lines.
With this new technology in hand, Roberson’s team had to determine how to get Internet connectivity to each panel. In most applications — such as retail, office, health care and even school facilities — a standard IP line is usually present and capable of being shared with the fire alarm. In this case, with construction already complete, S.C.I. went wireless, utilizing wireless routers and endpoints. All told, with the conversion to wireless Roberson succeeded in saving the community more than $10,000 in what are now unnecessary phone line charges.
Peace of Mind and Convenience
As an additional benefit to living at Moss Landing, developers asked S.C.I. to create a VLAN to allow residents Internet access. Since the FireWatch IP Communicator uses less than 72 bytes for a polling message or alarm event there is plenty of bandwidth left for other applications, such as viewing security video feeds on a home PC Web browser.
S.C.I technicians strategically mounted several 540-TVL high resolution varifocal outdoor security cameras by Honeywell to provide property owners the ability to view limited areas of each villa. The color analog feeds are recorded to a Dedicated Micros nine-channel DVR, installed in each unit, and archived for 45 days.
“Any resident can see the garage area or the perimeter entrances if they have access to the digital recorder through the network,” Roberson says. “Their home computers are tied into the wireless network that the fire system talks on.”
S.C.I. also tied each unit into a hardwired apartment entry system, also referred to as a no-phone-bill system. The Pach & Co. solution (Aegis NPB9000 Series) generates its own unique dial tone to each of the seven units in each villa without incurring charges for a telephone line. “It gives the residents a custom ring in their units so they know it’s someone at the front door [opposed to a regular telephone ring],” Roberson says.
At the time of their home purchase, Moss Landing residents were given the option to add on a GE Security intrusion system that offers the convenience of disarming the alarm wirelessly with a key fob. For those who did purchase the home security system, S.C.I. then simply programmed one of the four auxiliary buttons on the key fob — which all residents use to open the garage door — to provide the disarm feature. (The garage door can also be operated using a numeric touch pad.)
“When they pull up to the villa they can open the garage door and disarm their unit using the separate buttons,” Roberson explains. “Once they unload their car with their groceries, for example, they don’t have to then punch a code as they walk into their home.”
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