The biggest difference between conventional and addressable fire alarms is scale. Conventional fire alarms are ideal for small buildings, such as individual offices or retail shops. They go off individually when they detect smoke or heat and will help everyone escape from your building safely and quickly.

Addressable fire alarms are a necessity for large building complexes or campuses. Addressable fire alarm systems can be customized in a variety of ways, including:

• Different devices having different alarm thresholds based on their location
• An annunciator panel in the front of your building to show exactly which devices or zones have been triggered
• Scalable networks that allow you to add zones with ease

Addressable fire alarm systems are typically more expensive than conventional alarms, but the extra information they provide to firefighters and building managers is invaluable.

Benefits of Addressable Fire Alarms

Again, for a large building or campus, addressable fire alarms are invaluable. Since they show exactly which devices are going off, it makes it extremely easy to figure out either where there is a fire or, in the event of a false alarm, which specific device is having a problem.

Another benefit of addressable fire alarms is that they require less cabling than conventional fire alarms. All of the devices installed as part of an addressable fire alarm system connect to a single cabling loop that runs through the entire premises, making it easy to add new devices to the existing system.

Benefits of Conventional Fire Alarms

Conventional fire alarms can be set up in zones, with each zone hardwired to a control panel or zone expander. Conventional fire alarm systems are much less expensive and require significantly less labor to install.