LYFE Changing: Challenging The Status Quo in Fire & Smoke Detection

Emergency Control Systems specialist, LYFE, has launched a new revolutionary combined system, EMTECT, disrupting how fire and smoke detection systems are specified for installation in large residential builds.

For generations, developers have been specifying and installing multiple separate emergency control systems to monitor and protect residential buildings, including; fire detection, smoke detection, sprinkler monitoring, lifts and access control interfacing, car park ventilation and corridor environmental ventilation. Expensive and onerous to install, these standalone systems each require monitoring and maintenance; and when incidents occur none of these systems work in unison, instead they act in an isolated capacity, providing largely binary-level information to incident commanders, who are often facing fast changing circumstances.

Three years in R&D at the LYFE labs in Kent, EMTECT emerged as a next generation ‘combined’ and ‘connected’ system, readily-deployable across multiple buildings and with the ability to be connected with fire detection systems within each individual apartment, providing a complete emergency control system for the entire building, rather than just the common parts.

Totally unique within a marketplace that has not changed for decades, EMTECT is also compliant to all relevant fire safety standards, including BS 5839-1, BS EN 12101-10 and BS ISO 21927-9. With its game-changing benefits it has already set itself apart as a future-focused industry leader.

Now available through Approved Installers, dozens of major projects have already been completed in 2019; and with treble that amount pending, the system is making waves with developers and M&E contractors alike – proving more effective in protecting lives and more cost effective to install and maintain.   

Beyond obvious cost savings from less equipment, with just a single panel 
requirement and typically over a 35% reduction in cabling, further efficiencies can be gained in installation and maintenance.

Whilst this, the next-gen system, offers enhanced BMS monitoring and
multi-building control, it is the system’s ‘connected’ capabilities where new thinking and R&D is being concentrated, as engineers work to solve information challenges faced by incident commanders.  

Sparked by the recommendations from the first stage of the Grenfell inquiry, looking at how any emergency life safety decision making would benefit from more detailed, accurate and real-time incident information, LYFE’s hope is that the next versions of the EMTECT system will exploit new technologies, such as machine learning, AI and 5G. Ultimately, to provide even more detailed information of how to prioritise the evacuation, allowing incident commanders to react much quicker to changing circumstances.