Fire alarm systems are broken into three main categories; conventional, addressable and combination panels.
All three use smoke detectors, heat detector, pull stations, tamper and flow switches to monitor your building. The difference is the way these devices will communicate to the panel.
Conventional fire alarm panels were the normal place in every building prior to the 21 century. In a zoned system, fire alarm devices in a common area or floor of a facility are connected to the same alarm initiating circuit. A zoned panel is installed with the exact amount of zones need at the time of install and not for future installs.
This arrangement allows alarm annunciation to be reported by areas of the building to identify which device is in-alarm. Conventional panels are often used in small facilities where a few zones can provide sufficient alarm annunciation.
Addressable fire alarm systems use digital encoding and multiplex technology to more accurately identify alarm locations and device conditions. Each fire alarm device in a system is programmed with a unique address.
The fire alarm control panel is capable of communicating with a single address or a group of addresses depending on the functions required. The communication is often multiplexed over a common cable, sometimes referred to as the signaling line circuit (SLC). This arrangement significantly reduces the amount of cabling necessary to install the system. The communication channel allows two-way communication, thus enabling the fire alarm control panel to control as well as monitor fire alarm devices.
A significant component of addressable fire alarm system is the software programming necessary to make the system function correctly. The programming allows for flexible applications where you want to have specific control over the inputs and outputs.