A fire detection and alarm system designed to Australian Standard AS 1670.1 can incorporate wired or wireless fire detectors. Because these systems exist for both life safety and asset protection, there are also requirements to ensure the alarm transmission path is tolerent to fault conditions such as open and short circuits.
These systems fall into three categories;
- wired (conventional) systems;
- wired (addressable) systems;
- wireless systems.
A fire detection and alarm system can also incorpotate each of these methods in order to connect with fire detectors and other equipment.
Most modern fire detection and alarm systems are of the addressable type because the offer a combination of improved fault tolerence, lower installation costs and advanced information from each fire detector.
Wireless fire detection systems can also be a viable solution for buildings where heritage requirements exist or the installation of cables to each fire detector is difficult or dangerous. These systems are very reliable but do require various components of the system to be wired such as the gateway between the fire alarm control panel and the wireless fire detectors.