Telford Shopping Centre, pictured, has a new, digital public address and voice alarm. Over the 25 acres of commercial space, the IP-based Praesensa product from Bosch Building Technologies now provides music, announcements, and emergency alerts for retail stores, restaurants, hotels and cinema. The shopping mall operator was looking to upgrade its public address with something future-proof and IP-networked. Two key requirements were the centre’s sustainability and energy efficiency while keeping install costs low.
Bosch partner North AVS refurbished the loudspeakers at the centre across 16 zones via minor modifications on the end lines. As a result, the installer merely needed to replace the obsolete control equipment – including a call station with analogue buttons – and amplifiers. Security staff at the shopping centre now control the public address via an intuitive touch screen interface. Managed via OMNEO media networking, the software combines live broadcasts and recordings from various media sources. A library includes background music in MP3 format, commercials from a message database, and end-of-day mall closing messages on automated schedules. Automation kicks in during an emergency, for instance in case of a fire. Targeted to specific zones on the property, the public address integrates with the fire alarm to play pre-recorded alerts and evacuation messages. Personnel can send live voice messages and manually trigger the evacuation protocol as needed.
As for energy efficiency, Praesensa achieves a low energy footprint via smart power partitioning across amplifier channels. The software adapts to loudspeaker loads and divides the available output power across all channels to a maximum of 600 Watts. This function the makers say lowers overall power usage over the system’s lifetime, especially in the idle state where most systems spend most of their time. Requiring less battery standby, the system can run on only two batteries that need changing every four years according to British standards. Also aiding the low energy footprint is the minimised form factor. While the legacy system occupied two rack spaces in the server room, the new solution cuts that in half. This is achieved by integrated standby amplifiers that reduce the cost – especially for cooling – and space of the rack housing. This also provides a redundancy measure. Praesensa also delivers automated fault notification to the control desk within 100 seconds, thereby meeting EN54-16 standards for public address systems.
All control equipment is connected via Secure IP. Safeguards include encryption and authentication for protection against eavesdropping and hacking.
Chris Titley, Facilities Manager, Savills says: “We were very pleased with the installation of the equipment by North which caused minimal disruption and they also managed to keep us operational whilst the Shopping Centre was open. We are extremely happy with the quality and operation of the new Bosch equipment and the team are finding the system easy to use. It´s of paramount importance to have a reliable system and this is definitely ticking all the boxes.”
