Las Vegas installer likes 'green' solution

LAS VEGAS—A new Cooper Notification solution that combines an LED strobe with high-fidelity sound in speakers that save energy and are so intelligible they can be used not only for emergency messaging, but for general paging and background music, is a boon to dealers, according to Josh Claunch of Communication Electronic Systems.

“We're excited to use it,” Claunch told Security Systems News at the ISC West show, held here in April. “It kind of gives us an edge.”

He was talking about the newest Wheelock's Exceder LED Series solution, which Cooper, a Long Branch, N.J.-based supplier of life safety and mass notification solutions, was touting at the show.

Last year at ISC West, Cooper introduced its energy-efficient light-emitting diode notification appliances.

Ted Milburn, Cooper's VP of marketing, told Security Systems News that since then, the company has been “taking LED across our entire platform,” phasing out its “typical xenon technology … in favor of LED.”

And at this year's show, Milburn said, “we've taken two steps. We've packaged the LED strobe onto our speaker and then we've upgraded the speaker to a high-fidelity speaker for purposes of intelligibility. … In the space for both fire and mass notification, there's a lot more use for general-purpose paging as well as background music, and it's just a better-quality speaker that you can use for multiple services.”

Claunch said the product will give his Las Vegas-based company—a family-owned enterprise with about 100 employees that has been in business since the 1970s—an advantage. He said that “there's a big incentive here in town” to construct "green" buildings. With the new Cooper solution requiring less wiring and power, Claunch said, “we now have the opportunity to say, 'Look, this is something we can provide.'”

Communication Electronic Systems specializes in fire alarms, Claunch said, but its other services include audio. Now, he said, with the high-frequency range of the new Cooper solution “we can actually use this for paging as well, instead of having to do two systems. So we can show some value there as well to end users.”

In a news release at the show, Cooper announced “the industry's first line of speakers to utilize light-emitting diode as the light source for its speaker strobe models. The newest solution from Wheelock's Exceder LED Series produces high-fidelity sound output in a low-profile design for indoor wall-mount applications, where intelligible voice is required.”

The company said that with “the widest frequency response range in the industry, 300 to 8,000 Hz, the Exceder LED speakers and speaker strobes feature leading intelligibility with crisp, clear voice messages and tone signaling ideal for emergency communications, mass notification and voice evacuation.”

It said that the company's “patented LED technology also provides the industry's lowest current draw. It allows for energy savings of up to 52 percent compared to competitive models. Using LED as the strobe light source, the product incorporates high-efficiency optics to minimize current draw. This allows for a greater number of appliances on the notification appliance circuit and requires fewer power supplies.”