This week we had planned to take a detailed look at the new Site Map Portal, but we’re going to save that for next time while we finish the supporting videos.

Instead, we’ll cover some developments across the other portals, upcoming app releases, and a few general updates.

We’ve created a brochure specifically for Service Agents BDMs and Account Managers to use with customers and key accounts. 

The brochure helps explain how AFAM’s additional free services, including the Property Portfolio Portal and floor plan functionality, provide added value and benefits to building owners and property managers. 

Before making it generally available, we’re looking for feedback. If you’re a BDM or Account Manager who thinks this may be useful and you’d like to review the brochure, let us know and we’ll send you a copy.

If you’ve recently had a demo of the Property Portfolio Portal, you may already have seen this feature we’re close to releasing.

The idea is to assign a score to each individual property based on factors such as recurring defects, aged defects, testing history, and other key indicators. These scores are then combined to create an overall portfolio score.

This allows you to compare your portfolio against anonymised portfolios of a similar type, while also identifying the individual sites and contributing factors that may benefit from remedial work to improve the overall score.

We’ll share more details and examples of this feature in action very soon.

The updated Apple version of the AFAM AlarmTech App will be released within the next couple of days.

There’s nothing special required to upgrade — the app will update automatically in the same way as your other apps.

This release brings the Apple version in line with Android and includes:

• New controls for selecting which message types generate notifications and alerts
• A new rules engine that allows alerts based on specific words or phrases
• Improved user interface and usability
• General performance improvements and bug fixes

The rules engine can be particularly useful for identifying specific defect types or prioritising notifications for key customer sites.

The AFAM AlarmTech App is now being used by just under 100 companies and branches.

We considered offering something special to the 100th group to sign up, but it’s difficult to discount something that’s already completely free.

Remember, the app allows you to view all properties you manage or maintain — not just those monitored by AFAM.

If you’d like to get set up, or would like a walkthrough of the functionality, get in touch and we can arrange a demo or assist with onboarding.

Just a reminder that we maintain a full inventory of monitoring equipment spares at our Auckland office.

If you’re in Auckland and urgently need equipment or parts, contact the office and we’ll arrange the fastest possible shipment.

​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.

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.

We took a closer look at our monitoring system—how it works, why it works the way it does, and we dispelled a few common myths along the way. If you missed it, you can catch up here AFAM Monitoring System.

A couple of weeks ago we shared that we’ve begun developing a next-generation version of our CTU monitoring device. This week, we’re excited to give you a deeper look at what’s underway.

Earlier this year, we quietly kicked off a ground-up redesign of our CTU hardware. Our current CTU has served the industry for more than a decade, evolving through multiple updates and still outperforming alternatives.

However, there are new features and services we want to deliver that the current design simply can’t support. This redesign lays the foundation for those capabilities—both for today and for the future.

​Be rest assured though, everything that the current CTU provides such as in panel installation and native IoT Detector Level information capture will be carried forward. We're not going to remove any existing functionality, we're going to add to it.

Right now, we manufacture two CTU variants, chosen based on whether the device will be installed inside a panel or not.

The new CTU will be built as a single common platform, with an optional secondary board (added during manufacturing) to meet specific installation requirements. This gives us far more flexibility, makes future feature expansion easier, and even opens the door to potential use in new markets here and overseas.

​The next-generation CTU includes built-in Bluetooth. One major use will be enabling authorised users to connect via the AFAM AlarmTech App for diagnostics and commissioning while on-site.

This will mean guided commissioning prompts, clear indications of what’s correct or incorrect, and far less reliance on manuals, prior knowledge, or interpreting LEDs on the unit.

This new CTU isn’t just faster—it’s dramatically faster.

• The processor is roughly 100× faster
• It includes over 100× more storage

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This leap in capability allows far more processing to happen directly on the device, which will be crucial for the new services we’re planning.

As with the current CTU, the new device will include four versatile inputs. (If you missed our article on how those inputs work, you can read it here: CTU Additional Inputs)

The next-gen CTU will also feature two outputs, allowing the device not just to monitor equipment but to activate it when required.

We’ve designed the new CTU around a modern, commercial-grade battery management system. Battery management technology has advanced significantly since our current model was introduced, and this upgrade will improve charging, monitoring, and overall battery lifespan.

We’re still in the prototyping phase. While we’d love to release it this year, that won’t be possible. Hardware development takes time, and our best estimate is that the CTU will be ready sometime early to mid next year.

There’s plenty we haven’t revealed yet—and we’d love your input.

​If there’s something you’d like the new CTU to be capable of, let us know. We may already be working on it, or it might be something we can still build in. We can’t promise every idea will make it, but we’re listening.

​We’ve got some news to share—and a few interesting updates you won’t want to miss.