Specifications

Redefining Life Safety
Redefining Life Safety
Life safety used to mean the protection of buildings and
occupants against the threat of fire. From this grew an
industry that has undergone quantum leaps from relay
logic, to microprocessor-based technology, to peer-to-peer
networks with integrated audio annunciation – all in the
span of just a few years.
While the protection of people and property has
always been, and will continue to be, the primary focus of
life safety efforts, few would argue that standards haven’t
played a major role in propelling the industry forward.
Agencies such as NFPA and UL have established life safety
as among the most stringently regulated and most closely
scrutinized industries in the world. And for good reason: with
lives and assets at stake, nothing can be left to chance.
Today the life safety industry is in the midst of yet
another quantum leap forward. Expanding into the arenas
of security, access control, and CCTV, many life safety
manufacturers are seeking ways to extend the life safety
function. But listing fire alarm functions in the same system
with security and access control has been regarded as a
Pandora’s Box of regulatory obstacles and resistance. As a
result, efforts in the past have concentrated on combining
separately listed systems by means of a user interface that
gives the illusion of total building control. To reinforce the
illusion, this patchwork approach has been referred to as
“integration.”
From the interfaced system point of view there is
good reason for keeping life safety separate from security
functions. To do otherwise would require an unprecedented
effort in terms of securing approvals and listings. It would
mean venturing into uncharted territory.
At GE Security we’re used to blazing trails. With the
introduction of the Synergy concept, we’ve managed to
accomplish what many said couldn’t be done: we’ve com-
bined for the first time fire alarm, security, and access
control on a single, fully-listed network backbone. EST3 is the
platform used to carry this effort through, proving once
again that this exquisitely engineered system has both the
power and the flexibility to jump through all the regulatory
hoops, to negotiate all the listing minefields – and still have
lots left over for system expansion.
Was all this effort worth it? You bet. Operating over
the EST3 network, security and access control not only enjoy
the speed and versatility of this proven life safety performer,
they also have the opportunity to share system resources
such as wiring, power supplies and off-premise communica-
tion. And that saves material, labor, and maintenance costs.
Big time.
Synergy promotes the sharing of resources. It
makes a simpler system. One that’s easier to service and less
trouble to program than several separate systems. EST3 has
always been an event-driven system that orchestrates all
fire alarm functions with extreme efficiency. With added
security and access control functions, the possibilities are
endless: unlock access controlled doors when there’s a fire
alarm; use integrated audio to issue audible intruder alert
messages – all through software, no extra relays or wiring
required!
EST3 also elevates the reliability and survivability
of security functions to a level found previously only in
dedicated fire alarm systems. And when it comes to the
marriage between existing systems, nothing beats EST3. In
fact, the system is even backward compatible with BACnet,
the open-source communications protocol commonly used
to bridge interfaced systems together.
How does Synergy fit into this picture? Synergy is the
name used to describe GE Security’s method of combining fire,
access control, and security functions into one seamless
system. Synergy is not a new system, but rather the logical
extension of EST3 architecture into security and access control.
In addition to traditional fire alarm devices, prod-
ucts used to create Synergy include motion detectors,
security input modules and access controllers. These
connect on network wiring and draw power from the same
sources supplying fire alarm components. Now, with EST3,
dozens of Signature Series multisensor detectors can co-exist
with dozens of Signature Series motion detectors – on the
same pair of wires. This degree of system unity is simply
unprecedented.
EST3 is the first UL 864-listed fire and security
platform ever engineered. We’ve accomplished this by
tackling listing challenges head-on, not avoiding them. And
we’ve negotiated all the regulatory hurdles so you don’t
have to. The result is a whole that is much greater than the
sum of its parts: true Synergy.
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