Alarm Brand Overview

Apollo

While not as prominent as other brands in the North American market, Apollo manufactures smoke detectors for Firecom, Mircom, and National Time and Signal, legacy Gamewell systems, and previously manufactured for Harrington Signal and Autocall before they were acquired and absorbed by other companies. Apollo was founded in the UK.

Autocall

Autocall has an interesting backstory, in that it was originally founded in 1908, but the name disappeared after the 2001 Simplex/Tyco merger. It was not until November of 2017, after the Johnson Controls Simplex acquisition that Johnson Controls made the decision to bring back the Autocall name , and use re-branded, non-cross-compatible devices Simplex currently has on the market.

Autocall manufactures panels, smoke detectors, heat detectors, manual pull stations, and notification appliances.

Visit the Autocall Website

Bosch (formerly Radionics)

Radionics was founded on June 23rd, 1975 in California. Radionics over the rest of the century made all kinds of fire and burglary panels, and made tons of contributions to the industry, and came out with features other did not have, such as faster reporting, and remote programming. Radionics was owned by Detection Systems Inc. Radionics was bought by Bosch circa 2003, and is now Bosch Security Systems Inc.

Bosch's most common panels are the now obsolete 7000/9000-Series (such as the D7412G), the B series (such as the B5512), and the G series (the B8512G and B9512G). Their panels remain extremely popular in retail stores, large commercial buildings, and are sometimes used in residential applications.

All Bosch and Radionics panels can be programmed with Bosch Remote Programming Software (RPS), or the 5100 and 5200 handheld programmers. RPS can be downloaded from Bosch's website, and handheld programmers can be purchased online. Bosch/Radionics panels can have datalocks, which are codes that can be programmed by the installer to lock data from transferred. The B series panels are available to the public. The G series panels are available only to distributors and Bosch.

Bosch also sells alarm systems in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Oceania.

Edwards/EST/Kidde

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Edwards is the main company behind both the Kidde line of products, which is used in smaller applications, and the EST line of products which is used in larger applications. Several of Edwards/EST's panels can only be programmed by an authorized dealer. Edwards has been around for over 150 years, and in the fire protection industry their older devices are labeled under the Edwards name (the EST name has not been used since 2016, except for the EST3, EST3X, and EST4 panels).

Edwards manufactures panels, smoke detectors, heat detectors, manual pull stations, and notification appliances.

Kidde is very popular when it comes to residential Smoke/CO Alarms, almost any American home you go into will most likey have at least one Kidde/FireX product. FireX was popular in the 90s for their smoke alarms, which are still installed in lots of homes despite the need to replace them due to age. FireX was bought by Kidde in 2009 . Kidde, despite selling rebranded Edwards/EST commercial fire alarm products, is mostly in the residential business.

In December of 2024, Carrier sold their life safety division, and Kidde/Edwards is now part of Kidde Global Solutions.

Visit the KiddeFX website Visit the Edwards Fire Website

Fire-Lite

Main Article: Fire-Lite Alarms

The Fire-Lite company was founded in the early 1950’s by Edward Levy and his son Herbert Levy. The company originally installed and serviced fire alarm systems. In 1962 the company discontinued their installation and inspection services and entered into the manufacturing business. By the year 1973, the company had grown so much to where a new facility was needed, so the company moved all operations to a new 50,000 square-foot building. Manufactured by Honeywell, the design of products matches many other Honeywell brands such as Notifier. Fire-Lite manufacturers non-proprietary fire alarm systems and equipment, meaning that their programming software and documentation is freely available, and any licensed technician can program a Fire-Lite panel.

Fire-Lite manufactures panels, smoke detectors, heat detectors, manual pull stations, and voice panels.

Visit the Fire-Lite Website

Gamewell-FCI

Gamewell-FCI is a mix of two big names from an older time, Gamewell and Fire Control Instruments merged by Honeywell in 2005. Gamewell is commonly known for the M46 “century“ series and the masterboxes seen on the streets of many cities, most of which have been since removed, but some cities still have active box alarms despite the "outdated" technology. FCI, on the other hand, was mostly known in the past for their notification appliances and the MS-2 and MS-6 pull stations

In the modern days, however, Gamewell-FCI has created high end panels that have recently been growing in popularity throughout the market. Their latest series, the S3, features a touch screen color display that is expandable to have 122 nodes, each having two SLC loops, which adds up to tens of thousands of devices, all on one network.

Gamewell-FCI manufactures panels, smoke detectors, heat detectors, and manual pull stations.

Visit the Gamewell-FCI Website

Gentex

Gentex made and still makes fire alarm devices to this day. They’re know for their Commander and SHG horn strobes. They also make commercial smoke alarms.

Hochiki

Hochiki is a Japanese brand founded in the early 1900's. While their products are mostly installed in Europe, they do sell some panels in North America. Hochiki is best known for making smoke detectors for Simplex, Silent Knight, Napco, Radionics/Bosch, Potter, and Fike. They also provided addressable devices (including smoke detectors) for multiple companies, including Silent Knight SD devices (mainly popular in 2000's silent knight addressable systems). Hochiki does sell their FireNet panels in the United States, but is not very popular.

Mircom

Founded in 1991 by Tony Falbo, Mircom Group is one of the largest Canadian Fire & Life Safety companies. Mircom remains a privately owned company manufacturing equipment for Fire, Security, Mass Notification, & Building Automation under their other brand names: Secutron and United Export Corporation. While based in Canada, Mircom's systems are available around the globe via their distribution network.

Mircom manufactures panels, smoke detectors, heat detectors, manual pull stations, notification appliances, and voice panels

Visit the Mircom Fire Website

Notifier

The Notifier company was founded in the late 1940’s by Oliver Joy in Waverly, Nebraska. In the 1950’s the company moved it’s HQ to Lincoln, Nebraska. The company was later sold off to the Emhart corp, then in 1987 the Pittway Corp bought Notifier and moved it’s HQ up the town of Norford, Connecticut.12 years later in 1999 Honeywell bought out Notifier. Notifier is a little different from it's other Honeywell counterparts, in that it has two main lines of products. Their Fire Warden series is just like the Fire-Lite line of devices, and even uses the same programming software. The Onyx series, however, is their more advanced, more proprietary lineup. In order to program an Onyx system, a technician must purchase a software license from Notifier in order to program. To purchase a license, a technician must go through proper Notifier training.

Notifier is also used in Europe and uses a similar protocol like flashscan called opal and also used clip in older systems.

Notifier manufactures panels, smoke detectors, heat detectors, manual pull stations, and voice panels.

Visit the Notifier Website

Potter

Potter Electric Signal Company is a St. Louis, MO based manufacturer of sprinkler monitoring devices and fire alarm systems. Started in 1898 by Charles E. Potter, they originally produced coded signalling devices that notified a central monitoring station. Today, they are perhaps best known for their vane-type sprinkler flow switches, but they also make panels, smoke/heat detectors, pull stations and notification appliances.

Visit the Potter Signal Website

Siemens (formerly Cerberus Pyrotronics)

Siemens is a high end, proprietary company that specializes in medium to large facilities. Their systems are very complex, and require licensed Siemens technicians to work on and program.

Siemens is not proprietary in Europe and also manufactured access control equipment before the security division was sold to Vanderbilt in 2015.

Siemens is based in Germany.

Siemens manufactures panels, smoke/heat detectors, pull stations, and notification appliances.

Visit the Siemens Website

Silent Knight

Silent Knight, similar to Fire-Lite, is more open source: any licensed technician can program their panels. The programming software and control panel layout is more unique, but overall concepts & language can be carried over between all Honeywell systems.

Silent Knight manufactures panels, smoke detectors, heat detectors, manual pull stations, and voice panels.

Visit the Silent Knight Website

Simplex

SimplexGrinnell, acquired by Johnson Controls in 2016 upon a merger with Tyco, has been in the fire alarm industry since 1958 by acquiring the IBM fire alarm division. They are a widely used, well known company in the fire protection industry. Due to their big name, they try to protect the Simplex name by being fairly closed off in terms of installation and programming. Simplex is known for requiring their trained technician be sent out to do any form of programming or panel maintenance. However, for less technical tasks, such as replacing a faulty device in the field, any licensed technician should be able to do it.

Simplex manufactures panels, smoke detectors, heat detectors, manual pull stations, notification appliances, and voice panels.

Visit the Simplex Fire Website

System Sensor

Founded in 1984, System Sensor specializes in smoke and heat detectors, duct detectors, aspirating smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, audible visible notification devices, and HVAC smoke detection equipment. Their most popular products the I3 Series Smoke detectors and SpectrAlert Notification Appliances. System sensor manufactures the addressable detectors and modules for other Honeywell brands like notifier and non Honeywell brands like mircom. In Europe, system sensor is used for addressable system. They also manufacture the detectors. There most popular product in Europe are the addressable sounder and strobes and call points. System Sensor was a division of Pittway Cooperation operating under the BRK Electronics brand until 2000, when an acquisition of the Pittway Cooperation by Honeywell made it a part of Honeywell's life safety division. System Sensor notification appliances are the most common notification appliance used in Honeywell life safety systems.

Wheelock

Founded in 1922 as "Wheelock Signals, Inc.", Wheelock, Inc. is a long-time maker of fire alarm notification appliances. After being independent from 1922 to 2005, the company was acquired by Cooper Industries in 2006. In 2012 Cooper Industries themselves were acquired by the Eaton Corporation, and so were Wheelock along with them. Nowdays the Wheelock name is not as prominent as it once was, but the company still continues to produce notification appliances for fire alarm systems.

Wheelock manufactures notification appliances and voice panels.