Bosch installs digital public address system at Telford Shopping Centre

Bosch Building Technologies has installed a digital public address and voice alarm system at Telford Shopping Centre, Shropshire, England.

On 25 acres of commercial space, the IP-based Praesensa system from Bosch is now providing music, announcements and emergency alerts for retail stores and restaurants, as well as hotels and a cinema.

The shopping mall operator was looking to upgrade the existing public address system with an IP-networked solution for retail environments with two key requirements: heightening the centre’s sustainability and energy efficiency while keeping costs for the upgrade low.

Working with these requirements, Bosch partner, North AVS, refurbished all existing loudspeakers installed at Telford Centre across 16 zones via minor modifications on the end lines.

As a result, system integrators needed to replace the obsolete control equipment – including a cumbersome call station with analogue buttons and amplifiers.

Since the upgrade, security staff at Telford Shopping Centre now control the public address system via an intuitive touch screen interface.

Managed via OMNEO media networking technology, the software-based system combines live broadcasts and recordings from various media sources. The library includes background music in MP3 format, commercials from a message database, plus end-of-day mall closing messages on automated schedules.

According to Bosch, automation also kicks in during an emergency, for instance in case of fire. Targeted to specific zones on the property, the public address system integrates with the fire alarm system to play pre-recorded alerts and evacuation messages.

Sustainability and energy savings

The second main project parameter consisted of energy efficiency. Allegedly, Praesensa achieves low energy footprint via smart power partitioning across amplifier channels. The software adapts intelligently to loudspeaker loads and divides the available output power across the channels to a maximum of 600 Watts.

The built-in function 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 supposedly run on two batteries that need changing every four years according to British standards.

Bosch also argues that Praesensa also delivers automated fault notification to the control desk within 100 seconds, thereby meeting EN54-16 standards for public address systems.

Chris Titley, Facilities Manager at Savills, said: “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.”

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