This week we attended Fire Australia 2026 in Melbourne. Below is a recap from the event, along with an introduction to a new type of portal we’ve recently launched.

​Fire Australia 2026 was held at the Melbourne Conference and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), a venue spanning more than 70,000 square metres of event space. During the conference, several other events were taking place simultaneously—including a national HVAC exhibition, regional conferences, and graduation ceremonies—yet the scale of the venue meant each event operated seamlessly without overlap.

The conference featured a trade show with over 90 exhibitors, alongside a comprehensive program of educational sessions. This year, sessions were delivered across six streams, covering topics such as fire engineering, regulatory frameworks, current industry challenges, and emerging areas like AI adoption and battery energy storage systems (BESS).

While in Melbourne, we also met with several of our customers who are based locally and manage commercial property portfolios in New Zealand.

We’ve included a selection of photos from the event below.

​We’re pleased to announce the launch of our new Site Map Portal. This tool provides a real-time, graphical overview of fire alarm system status across a geographic site—such as a hospital, campus, or industrial facility.

In addition to live system monitoring, the portal delivers an audible alert in the event of a fire, which continues until the alarm is acknowledged. This feature is particularly valuable for sites that require on-the-ground response actions before emergency services arrive.

The portal has been developed in collaboration with customers who need both immediate fire service dispatch (which we continue to handle as standard) and coordinated internal response procedures.

We’ll share more details in our next newsletter, including screenshots and a video demonstration of the portal in action.

As regular readers will know, we maintain a full inventory of monitoring equipment spares at our Auckland office. Anastasia captured a short video of our latest shipment arriving—take a look by clicking on the image below.

Over the next two weeks, our team will be in Wellington and Hamilton, alongside our teams in Auckland and Christchurch.

If you’d like to meet, ask questions, or arrange a demo, feel free to get in touch.

​In our next newsletter, we’ll take a deeper dive into the Site Map Portal, with more detail, visuals, and a look at additional enhancements currently in development.

Following our last newsletter, we’ve had a great response from property owners and service agents providing floor plans for monitored sites.

If you’d like real-time visibility of your fire alarm system, right down to individual detectors, get in touch. We’ll guide you through getting your floor plans uploaded and fully populated, at no cost.

For service agents installing our monitoring units, aerial placement is critical. Strong signal = reliable performance. Here’s some tools and ways we help:

• On the CTU: Press and hold the test button for two seconds. The four LEDs will temporarily display signal strength. Two or more lights = good signal.
• Via the Android AFAM AlarmTech App: Navigate to Diag > Cell for detailed signal strength data. If your phone uses the same network as the CTU, you can check signal strength before installation. (This isn’t available on iOS due to Apple platform restrictions.)
• Call us: We work closely with cellular providers and have access to detailed network data. We can often advise on the best locations within a building for reliable coverage.

We’ve received the first prototypes of our completely redesigned CTU and have begun testing and firmware development.

Key enhancements include:

• A significantly more powerful processor for faster performance and greater capability
• Bluetooth connectivity for direct app access—making commissioning and troubleshooting easier onsite
• Multiple general-purpose outputs, expanding control capabilities beyond monitoring
• Networking capability, allowing multiple CTUs to operate together which unlocks new functionality
• Analogue inputs for integration with devices like pressure (think sprinklers) and temperature sensors

It’s still early days, but we’re excited about what this will enable.

Over the next two weeks, our team will be in Wellington, Hamilton, Tauranga, and Melbourne (Fire Australia), alongside our Auckland and Christchurch offices.

If you’d like to meet, ask questions, or see a demo, just let us know.

A reminder: the current CTU includes four general-purpose inputs that can monitor a wide range of devices.

For example, on a sprinkler system with a pump, you can use these inputs to track pump activity—start, stop, or potential failure.

Best of all, these inputs are free to use. Get in touch if you’d like to learn more.

We’re expanding our testing and training setup and are looking for additional panels and DBAs.

If you’re upgrading or replacing any of the following (in working condition), we may be interested:

• All DBAs (especially Vitech)
• Notifier CFP16
• Ampac NZ400
• Ampac NZ3200
• Ampac FireFinder

If you have something available, let us know.

​In the next newsletter, we’ll share insights from Fire Australia and updates from across New Zealand.

In this update, we’ll share a few quick reminders, then dive into the latest features in the AFAM AlarmTech App, along with enhanced IoT detector floorplan views in the Property Portfolio Portal for both service agents and property managers.

We’ve had a surge of enquiries lately from customers looking for alternative monitoring options after, once again, receiving price increase notices from competitors.

If you or your customers are in the same position, we’d be happy to provide a no-obligation comparison quote. We’re confident you’ll be pleasantly surprised, not just by the cost, but by the level of service and how simple it is to switch.

Feel free to call us on 03 341 0464 or email [email protected].

Easier Access to Floor Plans on Mobile
Where IoT detector data and floor plans are available, service agents and property managers can view live detector information directly on building floor plans.

We’ve now made this even easier to access on mobile, just a couple of clicks from the Summary page, which can be reached by:

• Clicking the “View in Solomon” link in the AFAM AlarmTech App, or
• Using the link at the bottom of any state change SMS or email

Detector Level History on Floor Plans
You can now view history at an individual detector level directly from the floor plans.

We’ve recently released an updated version of the AlarmTech App for Android, with the Apple version coming shortly. 

Alongside general improvements and bug fixes, there are two key upgrades to alerting and notifications:

Customisable Alerts
Previously, only Fire (and Fire + Defect) events triggered alerts. Now, users can choose which message types generate alerts, ideal for roles like sprinkler technicians who may want to prioritise defect notifications.

Rules-Based Alerting
We’ve introduced a rules engine that allows specific messages to be elevated to alerts based on defined criteria.

For example, you might want:

• Alerts for all defects at a specific site or customer, but
• Notifications only for others

We’ve improved the “Subscribe to All Messages” feature to make it more mobile-friendly.

As a reminder, this allows you to temporarily receive all messages for a property, even if you’re not usually a recipient for that property. This is especially useful when working on sites outside your usual area or conducting inspections.

To subscribe:

1. Navigate to the PFA
2. Select “Subscribe to All Messages”
3. Choose a duration between 1 and 8 hours

That’s it, you’ll receive all messages for that site during the selected period.

We’ve released a couple of new short videos covering competitor price increases and what sets us apart:

• Competitor Price Increases
• Quick Update from the Bay of Plenty

If there’s something you’d like us to cover, just let us know.