Unpopular Opinion: Fire alarm manufacturers may care about safety, but they're really in the business to scare people.

Two different buildings can be exactly the same, but they may have two different fire alarm systems (for an easy example, consider two identical Walmart Supercenters). One of the systems may be much louder than the other, but both systems are deemed loud enough so that everyone will hear it no matter what is going on in the building. Therefore, I can only conclude that the manufacturer of the louder fire alarm prides itself in their systems being louder than necessary, and I my guess is that their main goal is to see how many children they can make cry and how many people they can instill a lifelong fear in at a young age. And they can disguise their evil intents by the fact that their products save lives.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

SW-User

Fire alarms are a lot easier on the ears nowadays compared to when I was growing up, in my opinion at least. I remember back when most fire alarms were like loud, continuous truck horns/car horns/buzzers and they made me cry on more than one occasion, in preschool and elementary school respectively. Nowadays most systems are either in "code 3" or they are voice evacuation systems which are better, lol.

33person · 26-30, M

@SW-User My middle school had the same alarm from 1975: Simplex 4051 horns in 20 pbm marchtime (on 1.5 sec, off 1.5 sec, on 1.5 sec., off 1.5 sec., etc) with projector horns. So I agree with you. But there are still some examples of alarms of today that are terrible.

SW-User

@33person My elementary school, built in 1972 and rebuilt in 1987 after a fire, had Simplex 9806 and 9846 horns in continuous, middle school built in 1970 had Simplex 4040 in continuous, and high school had System Sensor Spectre Alert Classic, which I didn't mind at all compared to middle school and high school 😂. I still prefer voice evacuation systems over horn strobes, lol.

33person · 26-30, M

@SW-User I loved the Spectralert Classic I had in Junior High. In High School, I had the Spectralert Advance. One elementary school in my district has Truealerts, and I've been told those can be incredibly loud. Simplex 4040 on continuous, though. Geez. That must have sucked.

33person · 26-30, M

@SW-User This is what my middle school's sounded like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKywdOxq1a8

This is what my high school's sounded like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln0rpaF_8zU

SW-User

@33person This what one of my elementary school's alarms sort of looked and sounded like [media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBjkYPgjdLA]

SW-User

@33person Here's the other type we had back then: [media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN4R3eXuxBw]

33person · 26-30, M

@SW-User I would have hated it. I've had a fear of fire alarms since preschool. Idk what alarm they had, but it was on continuous, and it was loud. I don't remember in detail enough to research it like I did with my other schools' alarms. My elementary school had Gentex Commander 3's in code 3, which wasn't too bad with them just in the hallway. I had a fire drill in gym once, which sucked, but it was unannounced, and it never happened again in my life. In high school, I had fire drills in some semi-bad places, like the band room and my chemistry classroom. But never in the gym or anywhere like that. Our hallways echoed like CRAZY, though, so the Spectralert Advances sounded like a knife was shredding your eardrum in those hallways.

SW-User

@33person My preschool was in a church built in 1974, and I'm pretty it had Simplex 4051 horns due to the distinctive sound that I still remember after 25 years. They were what caused my fear of continuous fire alarms, lol. There was actually a horn/alarm right next to the emergency exit door, to make matters much worse. I remember once when the alarms went off unexpectedly and I was so frightened that I ended up crying on my teacher while we waited for the fire department to investigate.

33person · 26-30, M

@SW-User I remember vividly my first fire drill in middle school. I expected it not to be that loud in the classroom, but Simplex 4051's in the hallway are enough to make you jump in the classroom. One kid in my class said to me, "You should have seen your face when that went off."

SW-User

@33person That's exactly how it was in my middle school with our 4040's 😂. I remember once time in 7th grade, one kid saying, "That s**t is loud as f**k" 😂😂.

33person · 26-30, M

@SW-User One girl in 6th grade peed her pants when it went off. We were in a classroom, but we were working quietly with the door open.

SW-User

@33person Lol...