Aico – making sheltered housing safer
Aico – making sheltered housing safer
Aico, UK’s market leader in domestic mains powered Fire and Carbon Monoxide (CO) detection, has developed an innovative product to solve a safety issue facing people in sheltered housing and other vulnerable people that use Telecare/Warden Call Systems.
Telecare/Warden Call Systems are commonplace in dwellings for vulnerable people and are an important tool to let people live independently in a safe environment – but in most situations they are not connected with the Smoke and CO alarms in the property.
The new Ei414 Fire/CO Alarm Interface provides a dedicated connection between Aico Smoke and CO alarms and Telecare/Warden Call Systems, enabling an emergency signal to be transmitted directly to that system if fire or CO is detected.
The Ei414 is a flexible device that interconnects Aico RadioLINK Smoke, Heat and CO alarms with most new and existing Telecare/Warden Call Systems. The connection to the Telecare/Warden Call Systems can be made wirelessly with Radio Frequency (RF) signals using RF Universal Transmitters, if available, as part of the Telecare/Warden Call Systems, or via hard wiring directly between the two devices.
As the Ei414 is a RadioLINK device and links to Aico RadioLINK Smoke, Heat and CO alarms wirelessly, it brings all the advantages of a wireless interconnect alarm system; these include far less disruption during installation, increased tenant compliance, more flexible coverage and greatly reduced installation time as a result of RF signal, rather than hard wired, alarm interconnection.
The Ei414 can be powered directly from the mains or from a 12-24V DC supply, from the Telecare/Warden Call Systems for example, and has built-in tamper-proof rechargeable Lithium Cells which will power the device in the event of any mains failure.
Exceptionally easy to use, the Ei414 features a removable key with three settings: On, Off and Test. When ‘On’ the Ei414 responds to an alarm signal from House Coded RadioLINK Aico Smoke, Heat or CO alarms, and switches the relevant ‘Fire’ or ‘CO’ relay contacts to trigger the Telecare/Warden Call Systems. LED indicators provide visual confirmation of mains power and fire or CO alarm activation. The ‘Off’ setting stops all fire and CO alarm triggers being sent to the Telecare/Warden Call Systems, which is particularly useful if a property becomes vacant. The ‘Test’ setting allows a responsible person such as a Warden or Fire Engineer to test the entire system, which would include a signal being transmitted to the Telecare/Warden Call Systems.
“The Ei414 has been developed in response to a need identified whilst working in close proximity with the social housing sector,” explains Neal Hooper, Director of Aico. “The challenge has been to solve a problem that falls in between two specifiers within the same department – one for smoke alarms and another for the Telecare/Warden Call Systems. We are encouraging these two specifiers to work together and call on the expertise of our highly trained Regional Specification Managers to explain the benefits of joining the two systems together and demonstrate how simple it is to install and use the product.”
The Ei414 Fire/CO Alarm Interface from Aico comes complete with a full five year guarantee and has RF performance to EN 300220-1 and EMC performance to EN 301489-1.
Aico is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ei Electronics and is the first name in residential fire protection in the UK. All alarms are designed and built in Europe specifically to meet UK standards and regulations. For more information, please visit www.aico.co.uk.
