Enhanced / IoT Detector Level Information

What is it?

Traditional fire alarm monitoring has always been fairly high-level—typically reporting just a handful of states like Normal, Fire, Defect (Trouble), Test, or Isolate.

Modern fire alarm panels, however, can provide far more detail, right down to the individual zone or detector. At AFAM, we call this Enhanced Information when talking with service agents, and IoT Detector Level Information when working with property owners and managers.
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That’s why, in our customer property portals, you’ll see the term IoT Detector Level Information used consistently.

What are the benefits?

Accessing this level of detail offers significant advantages:
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• Clearer fault information
  Traditional monitoring would say a system was in Defect without explaining what’s wrong. Enhanced monitoring tells you exactly what’s wrong, and where—e.g. “Detector fault, Loop 3, Detector 7, Level 2 Meeting Room.”
  This allows service agents to bring the right tools and replacement parts the first time, reducing unnecessary return visits. You did remember to pick up the ‘big’ ladder right?
• Early warnings
  Enhanced information often includes pre-alarm or maintenance required messages. These provide valuable early warnings about issues that, if ignored, could turn into false alarms, faults, or downtime. Without the right monitoring, these insights would go unseen.

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In short, it’s not just about knowing that there’s a problem—it’s about knowing what the problem is, where it is, and how to fix it faster.

How do we access it?

Our CTU (the hardware component of our monitoring system) is designed to natively read and transmit enhanced information from a wide range of panels—no extra interface cards required in most cases.

You can check which panels are supported in our Compatibility Guide, which details:

• Whether in-panel or external box installation is possible
• If additional interface cards are required
• Which panels we’ll be adding support for soon

​Not sure what’s required for your project? Just give us a call—we’ll walk you through the options.

Coming Next Week

We’ll continue our look at IoT Detector Level Information and show you exactly where you can access it in AFAM’s monitoring solutions, as both a service agent and a property owner/manager.
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We’ll cover:

• Messaging and reporting
• Floorplan and map views
• Customer and agent web portals