Get Tested for Safety and Savings

A shift has been sneaking through the world with a chill in the air and shortened days with longer nights.  That’s right readers; the autumn season is finally here.  With that time of year comes great family celebrations with the cavity inducing Halloween, the long trips for family gatherings at Thanksgiving, and the gather round the fire holidays of Christmas and Hanukkah following shortly thereafter.  While these are all things we look forward to as we start to look at the end of the year, it should also be remembered that this is the time of year we hear more and more about keeping your family and your businesses safe.  For the team at ICS that all begins with fire system testing and maintenance.

Getting your residential or commercial fire system inspected annually isn't just a requirement of the local and national fire code it is also smart business sense.  This is a system that is installed in every commercial space as well as residential spaces like condominiums and apartment complexes to keep you and your family or employees safe.  While on the news we hear about first responders coming to the rescue, the fire detection and alarm system is the first response that your occupants will get to inform them that there is a problem and they need to get in motion to stay safe.  Without regular inspections and maintenance your system could have sensors that are no longer working correctly – and that can spell big expenses.  Setting aside the possible consequences if there were to be an incident where there was property damage or personal injury, including loss of life, if an inspector were to get word that there were issues with a system he could potentially shut the building down.  This would force any occupants of the residency or commercial space to vacate the premises until the system is proven to be operational.  This could yield fines for not having a functioning system, the cost of relocating any residents or lost business for commercial tenants, even reaching the point of having to pay a qualified individual to be on location 24 hours a day monitoring the building until the system returns to proper operation. 

By reaching out to your local fire systems integrator before these issues arise you can make sure that your system and devices are all working correctly and prevent any problems from increasing in severity down the road.  In addition to abiding by code and preventing any liability issues in the event of an emergency, there may also be a cost savings with your insurance carrier.  Some carriers work with their customers and discount the costs when the owner performs regular fire systems inspections, has a remotely monitored system, and maintains UL (Underwriters Laboratory) certification.  Please check with your insurance carrier to see what their policy might be as it could be annually, quarterly, or even monthly to get this savings.

ICS has a department specifically constructed to be available for fire system maintenance and testing.  If it’s been a while since your last system inspection, give us a call to arrange an appointment for a complimentary system inspection.  We can advise you on any functionality issues, improvements that might need to be made, or changes to the fire code that would require adjustments to the system.

You can reach the ICS fire alarm integration team at 408-491-6000 or at www.ics-integration.com

Can You Hear Me Now?

Everyone knows the difficulties of dropped cell phone calls and the now famous Verizon commercials, but the question “can you hear me now” is still a part of our professional vernacular.  As cell phones have become a primary communication device and cell phone networks improved, the question is now more commonly heard in corporate boardrooms.   The difficulties in the boardrooms are not based on maintaining connectivity but rather someone not speaking within range of the phone in the center of the table, the caller hearing their own voice play back through the speaker phone, or the intelligibility of the voice on the call.  We’re going to look at how each difficulty can be overcome with a simple system update. 

When you have a group of people gathered around a conference table with a speaker phone placed at the center, unless you are a member of King Arthur’s Court, odds are all participants will not be equidistant from the built in microphone.  Now, to the credit of the speakerphone manufacturers, they do offer optional microphone extensions but that still only puts a microphone near most people, not directly in front of them.  When a recent customer decided to upgrade, ICS was able to provide independent microphones that were installed in the boardroom table in front of each seat.  With this method no person was ever leaning over a table or out of range of a microphone forcing the listener to ask “can you repeat that?”

Speakerphones are everywhere; from using them in boardrooms to using them in your cars with Bluetooth technology.  Speakerphones, however, do not transmit your voice instantaneously; there is a slight delay in transmission causing an echo we have all experienced where we might be able to hear the last few words we said when we finish talking.  The audio industry has developed a way to combat this issue called Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC) processing.  The way this works is that the phone system and your microphones are connected to an audio processor with a built in AEC function.  During the programming phase of a project the audio processor is configured to ensure that the sound from the phone system is not picked up by the table microphones, preventing the echo.  In situations where two boardrooms might be trying to talk to one another, with an AEC processor in each boardroom attendees might not even be certain they are on a phone call at all.

Now that we've addressed ways to improve the transmission of voices in the boardroom, what can be done to increase the quality of the voice on the phone to make the message received clear and intelligible?  Using a speakerphone to try and broadcast sound to a room can be compared to shouting a message in an empty auditorium.  Eventually the sound will spread out and travel throughout the room, but will you be able to understand the message when it gets there or will it be distorted or interfered with by reflections?  A localized speaker system might seem excessive for a 15’ x 15’ room, but by putting more speakers closer to people’s ears providing more direct sound you can actually decrease the overall volume in the room, helping to prevent distortion and reflections off of the walls and ensure the message received is understood. 

By converting your boardroom conferencing system to independent microphones, audio processing with AEC, and localized speakers you can eliminate communication issues in the transmission of your message to anyone trying to receive it.  Your vision can be heard clearly, without echo, and increased intelligibility.  Now the only issue you might face is making sure who you’re talking to is as up to date with technology as you are.

For more information on how upgrading your boardroom audio visual systems can improve the quality of your meetings, please contact ICS integrated Communication Systems at 408-491-6000.

A New Way for Your Network to Improve Communication

Business today moves at the speed of information.  Each employee is wired into a network backbone allowing for communication and collaboration regardless of physical location.  Network infrastructure has become a key for every business to facilitate the ability to pass information at will wherever it needs to go.

That existing network has become much more influential to our businesses as more and more devices are connecting to it.  Now the office printers and even our phone systems are network based.  The same is true for audio visual equipment.  Devices that are network capable are becoming the standard in A/V making it easier to communicate for all Audio Visual devices over your company network.  But that’s just where it begins.  In addition to being able to use the touch panel on your conference room wall to have the screen drop and turn on the projector, we are also able to pass live audio and video signals across the network.

This network based audio solution is what ICS, in conjunction with Charles M. Salter Associates, Inc., has provided for the new expansion to the San Jose Convention Center.  The idea behind the network audio system is simple: there are dozens of possible configurations for the divisible meeting spaces, each meeting space area has multiple places to connect an audio source (microphone, iPod, Blu-Ray player, etc.) and multiple places to send that audio (like a local powered speaker or recording device).  The challenge that had to be overcome was with so many possible input locations trying to potentially reach so many output locations is, how could we find a way to make it easy to route those signals anywhere we needed them to go?  By implementing an Audinate ‘Dante’ network audio solution with system components including the Atterotech unDX2IO, MediaMatrix NiON n6, a Crestron Pro3 control system, and HP 10 gigabit network switches we were able to provide simple control for all signal routing across the network.  With the click of a mouse, a technician has the ability to route a single microphone to any designated area or combination of areas they wish for the given event.  In order to accomplish this with analog audio technology, it would have required that all signals, and thus cables, route back to a centralized room with 6’ tall racks completely filled with nothing but patch bays forcing them to physically connect a cable (just like the old phone system operators) to pass that sound to where it needed to go.

So why is this network audio solution so significant?  Let’s go back to how businesses are currently operating.  With businesses having locations with multiple conference rooms, remote locations and employees, by utilizing a network audio solution you are no longer limited to passing that audio signal just to a local area.  Now you can use your company’s existing network to send sound to any location that is capable of receiving that digital signal.  Just as a remote worker plugs in a laptop to connect to your local data system, they can now plug in an audio receiver making the conversation and information clearer and pushing your business farther and faster.

For more information on how a network audio solution could help your business, please feel free to contact ICS Integrated Communication Systems at 408-491-6000.