​This week we’re sharing another round of news and updates from the past fortnight. Looking back, it’s been another busy couple of weeks, with plenty happening across the business. Here are some of the highlights.

​Last week, several members of our team visited Fire Security Services in Hamilton for training on sprinkler and gas flood systems.

While we’ve been monitoring these systems for the past 20 years and are well versed in connecting them for monitoring, our understanding of how the systems themselves operate, how they’re constructed, and the differences between the various sprinkler system types hasn’t been quite as strong.

With our new CTU able to monitor and report on a much wider range of information, including things such as sprinkler pressures and ambient temperature, having a better understanding of these systems is increasingly important for us.

Thanks to Sheldon and Brendan for organising and putting our team through the training, and to Adam for arranging it. It was an excellent session that gave us a really useful overview of the different systems, as well as a few ideas for new features and services we may be able to make available to the industry.

The Fire Security Services dedicated training room is also very impressive, with examples of different sprinkler types, gas flood systems, fire panels and other fire detection and protection equipment. You can see some photos from the facility below.

Last week we also had the opportunity to meet with the team at Bensan.

We already monitor the wide range of panels that Bensan sells, both for conventional and IoT detector-level information. If you look at our Compatibility Guide here you’ll see which panels are supported and what’s required to monitor IoT detector-level information where the panel supports it.

The purpose of our conversation with Bensan was to explore what additional information we might be able to make available to fire alarm service agents remotely through our monitoring platform.

It’s early days, but the initial conversation was promising and suggests there may be some interesting opportunities in this area.

It was great to meet the team and we’re looking forward to seeing what we might be able to achieve together.

We’ve mentioned in previous newsletters some of the many benefits the new CTU, which is currently in development, will bring when it launches.

One thing we haven’t mentioned is that the new CTU will also be able to support more SGDs per loop than the current CTU.

For new installations, we generally don’t recommend monitoring a large number of PFAs from a single monitoring device. The main reasons are the additional cabling required, often run over long distances with long term maintenance implications, and the risk that an issue or outage affecting the monitoring device could result in a large number of systems becoming unmonitored.

Transfers are a different story. It’s not unusual for us to inherit a ‘legacy’ monitoring architecture from another provider, particularly when there is an ASE16 involved.

When we encounter this situation, we’ll generally transfer the site ‘as is’ and then work with the building owner and fire alarm service agent to design a more modern and resilient monitoring architecture. This can also unlock IoT detector-level information where it’s available.

We have a defined process for doing this, and it works well.

If you have a site with a large number of secondary systems, or one where legacy wiring is causing reliability issues, get in touch and we can talk you through the options including migrating the monitoring to us at no cost.

Thanks to the great work of our Auckland team, they’ve already outgrown their current office.

We’ve secured another office and, in what may be one of the shortest office moves in history, the team will be moving into the office directly next door — in the same building and on the same floor — over the next couple of weeks.

We’ve also started recruiting for a new Auckland-based role to add further capability to the Auckland team and the company as a whole. We’ll share more details about the role soon.

​Rebecka Andersson and Kieron Telford from our team will be attending the Facility Management Summit Aotearoa 2026 conference in Auckland on Tuesday 20 October.

If you’re also attending and would like to catch up, let us know.

A few months ago, we were asked about the split between conventional and analogue addressable panels that we monitor.

As a reminder, conventional panels aren’t capable of providing IoT detector-level information, whereas analogue addressable panels can.

Across all of the fire alarm panels we currently monitor, 26% are analogue addressable. Looking only at the panels we’ve started monitoring since the beginning of last year, that figure increases to 38%.

This suggests that the proportion of new panels being installed that are analogue addressable is increasing.

From a building owner, manager, and fire alarm service agent perspective, this is a positive development. Having access to IoT detector-level information remotely through our portals, floor plans and apps provides significantly greater visibility into what’s happening within a fire alarm system.

​We’ve been travelling a lot over the past couple of weeks, with members of the team visiting Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, Cambridge, Wellington, and Tauranga.

Anastasia and Rebecka put together the short video below during the couple of days they spent in the Bay of Plenty.

​Over the next fortnight, members of the AFAM team will be in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch.

If you’d like to arrange a meeting, grab a coffee, book a demonstration, or talk about how AFAM can provide greater visibility across your fire alarm portfolio, we’d love to catch up.

​This week we’re sharing some new reports, a new video, a reminder that you should never sign a long-term contract for fire alarm monitoring, and a few other updates.

​A couple of newsletters ago, we mentioned that we were developing a range of new reports that incorporate floor plans where they’re available.

The example below shows one of the new reports, displaying the detectors that have changed state between two points in time, along with the relevant details for each detector.

We think these reports will be particularly useful for annual surveys, commissioning and general troubleshooting. As always, we’d welcome any feedback on them and ideas for how you’d like to see them used.

We’re not currently the largest fire alarm monitoring company in New Zealand, but we are the fastest growing. We believe that’s down to the service we provide, and the time, energy, and money that we reinvest back into providing new solutions and features for customers and the wider fire industry.

Our contract terms are deliberately simple and fair: a three-month minimum term and a three-month cancellation period. That’s it.

We’d rather customers stay with us because of the value and service we provide than because we’ve locked them into a long-term contract.

We’ve become aware that one of our competitors is locking in customers on extremely long term multi-year contracts. If they were innovating in any way other than how to charge their customers more money that could be explained, but they’re not. They’re also nearly always more expensive than us.

All but one of the fire alarm monitoring providers in New Zealand offer terms broadly similar to ours. So if you’re not currently with AFAM and your provider asks you to sign a long-term contract, just say no.

There’s simply no need to lock yourself in. Migrating to AFAM is free, and you’ll generally be financially better off as well.

Before you sign a multi-year contract, talk to us first.

​Anastasia and Becka have put together a short introduction video. You may have already seen it on LinkedIn, but if not, click on the image below to have a look.

​As mentioned in our last newsletter, Fire NZ 2026 is being held in Christchurch from 8–10 September.

Anastasia and Kieron will be attending the conference as delegates, while the rest of the team will be visiting the trade show at various points throughout the event. If you’d like to catch up with anyone from the team, just let us know.

We also enjoy showing people around our Christchurch office and giving them a first-hand look at how we’re set up, what we’re working on and what we have in development.

Our office is only about a 15-minute drive from the Fire NZ venue. If you’d like to visit while you’re in Christchurch, let us know and we’ll put the kettle on.

​Our post a couple of newsletters ago generated a few questions about the 3D spatial building models we’ve been working on.

As a reminder over the past few months we've been quietly exploring ways to transform our existing two-dimensional floor plans into fully interactive 3D building models, with every detector accurately positioned using latitude, longitude and elevation coordinates. 

Traditionally, creating models like this requires every detector to be individually surveyed using GPS or laser measurement equipment, making the process both time-consuming and expensive. We've developed a much faster and lower cost approach that derives the 3D model directly from the existing floor plans.

If you click on the image below you’ll see a short video of a model of a real multi-storey building in Wellington rendered in 3D space.

The questions we received were mainly about how the models could actually be used.

The 3D rendering itself, while interesting to look at, isn’t something we see having much practical application on its own. Where we see the real potential is using the underlying model to enable other functionality, particularly augmented reality applications.

For example, a technician could point a phone running the AFAM AlarmTech App at a ceiling and instantly see the detector above them, along with its current status, history and other relevant information through an augmented reality overlay.

Another potential application could be for FENZ. Imagine being able to see which detectors have activated inside a building before deciding whether and where to enter. This could be particularly useful when responding to false alarms.

While that might sound a little far-fetched, developing what we already have to provide this type of functionality isn’t actually a giant leap into uncharted territory. Much of the underlying technology would already be in place.

For now, there’s limited demand for this type of functionality, so it will remain in our ‘future development’ pile. But we’re always looking ahead. If customer needs change, we’ll already have much of the technology required to make it possible.

Over the next fortnight, members of the AFAM team will be visiting Auckland, Dunedin, Hamilton, Wellington, Invercargill, and Christchurch. It’s going to be a busy couple of weeks!

If you’d like to arrange a meeting, grab a coffee, book a demonstration or discuss how AFAM can provide greater visibility across your fire alarm portfolio, we’d love to catch up.

​In our next newsletter, we’ll share more of what we’ve been working on and what’s happening around AFAM.

This week we're sharing an update on our new Business Development Representative, a preview of some new reporting capabilities we're developing, the latest AFAM AlarmTech App tutorial, and a glimpse at something we think could be useful in the future.

​We've started developing a new set of reports that incorporate floor plans where they're available.

Our existing reports already allow you to review activity on a PFA or property over a selected period of time. These new reports take that a step further by showing not only the events that occurred, but also where they occurred. Detector activations and state changes are displayed directly on the floor plan, making it much easier to visualise what happened throughout the building.

We think these reports will be particularly useful during site commissioning, annual inspections, and even routine monthly testing, where being able to quickly identify detector activity can save time and make troubleshooting much easier.

As we build out the tracking of non-monitored assets on the floor plans (such as extinguishers and emergency lighting) we’ll also include these on the reports.

We'll share some examples of these reports in an upcoming newsletter.

​We've recently published the second video in our series on getting the most out of the AFAM AlarmTech App. You can watch it by clicking the link below.

It's been a little while since we've talked about the On Test feature, so here's a quick reminder.

If you would like to temporarily pause messaging for a PFA or CTU, there are two easy ways to do it:

• Use the AFAM AlarmTech App – If we monitor the site, you can place it On Test yourself directly from the app
• Give us a call – Our team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and we're always happy to place a site On Test for you, regardless of the time

One important point to remember is that placing a site On Test only suppresses messaging. It does not stop fire alarm state changes from being transmitted to Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ).

If you'd like to see how to place a site On Test using the AFAM AlarmTech App, have a look at the tutorial videos available on our website.

As we mentioned in our last newsletter, we've found an outstanding person to join our Auckland team alongside Anastasia.

Rebecka Andersson joins AFAM in early August as our new Business Development Representative. Rebecka brings a strong background in both Security and Information Technology, with experience spanning technical, sales, and account management roles.

While she'll be new to the fire alarm monitoring industry, we're confident she'll be up to speed in no time. We're excited to welcome her to the team and know she'll be a great addition for both AFAM and our customers.

​Over the past few months we've been quietly exploring ways to transform our existing two-dimensional floor plans into fully interactive 3D building models, with every detector accurately positioned using latitude, longitude and elevation coordinates.

Traditionally, creating models like this requires every detector to be individually surveyed using GPS or laser measurement equipment, making the process both time-consuming and expensive.

We've developed a much faster approach that derives the 3D model directly from the existing floor plans. We won't give away all of the details, but it involves a combination of spatial analysis, image processing, and a healthy dose of what we like to call "monkey maths."

The result is a fully navigable 3D model that displays detector states in real time, just as our 2D floor plans do today. Each detector in the model is represented by a coloured marker, with the colour indicating its current state, providing an instant visual overview of the building.

To demonstrate what's possible, we've created a 3D model of the detectors in a real seven-and-a-half-storey building in Wellington. Click the image below to watch a short video showing the model. Viewing the building from different angles makes it much easier to orient yourself and quickly identify exactly where each detector is located.

Over the next fortnight members of the AFAM team will be visiting Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, and Christchurch. 

If you'd like to arrange a meeting, grab a coffee, book a demonstration, or discuss how AFAM can provide greater visibility across your fire alarm portfolio, we'd love to catch up.

​In our next newsletter we'll share more of what we've been working on, while also taking a closer look at some exciting new features that are just around the corner.