Brighton based Fireco are manufacturers and installers of wireless fire safety products – namely fire door retainers and fire alarm alert devices for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The latest edition to Fireco’s range is DMS (Deaf Message Service), a fire safety device that informs deaf people, via their mobile phone, when they are out and about in a public place such as a supermarket, shopping centre or library that the fire alarm is sounding.
Claire Chilton, an assessor for Level One British Sign Language exams and a TV presenter on deaf issues is profoundly deaf. She said “DMS is such a brilliant idea. Using text messaging to let you know a fire alarm is sounding … is using something deaf people use all the time.”
One in seven people in the UK suffer some degree of deafness. Because deafness is ‘invisible’, we are probably less aware of it in our day-today lives, but it is considered a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) – which sets out to promote greater corporate and public awareness to the needs of deaf people.
DMS has been jointly developed by Fireco, ProcessFlows, Adaptive Modules and Wireless Logic. The idea to develop DMS came from one of Fireco’s technicians, who identified that whilst Fireco could help alert a deaf person sleeping at home with their Deafgard bedside unit, they remained vulnerable in public places.
Fireco customer, the Hotel du Vin, issues their hard of hearing guests with a Deafgard unit on check-in and gives them a quick tutorial on how to operate the wireless, acoustically triggered device – which, when placed under a pillow, vibrates to wake the sleeper should the fire alarm sound. But this is not defacto in every hotel or public place and whilst Deafgard gives people the reassurance that at night they will be woken, deaf people have concerns that they could remain unaware of an emergency situation in a public place.
There are 82.7 million mobile phone subscriptions in the UK (Ofcom mobile phone stats for 2013), so utilising mobile technology to enable an anytime, anyplace, anywhere ‘alarm sounding’ notification device seemed an obvious way forward. Fireco set out to find partners
“The main reason we chose ProcessFlows to help us with the SMS element of the project was rooted in their obvious and apparent technical skill, plus their ability to deliver what was needed swiftly and without error or delay. During our initial meetings, it became clear that both parties were enthusiastic to work on a project that could improve the safety and quality of life for deaf people.”
Alan Busby
IT Manager, Fireco