Patent ID: 8294566

Claim:
An emergency warning system comprising: a plurality of emergency annunciators for installation in a physical zone, each of said emergency annunciators being operable to independently and periodically perform a self-test for verifying its capacity to annunciate an emergency and to transmit a report of the self-test result; a zone controller in communication with each of said emergency annunciators, said zone controller being operable to receive said reports from each of said emergency annunciators and to generate and transmit a zone report representing a consolidation of the received reports, said zone controller further being operable to receive a zone activation command from a master controller and to transmit, responsive thereto, an activation command to each of said emergency annunciators; and the master controller in communication with said zone controller, said master controller being operable to receive said zone report from said zone controller and to generate therefrom a user notification indicative of the self-test results, said master controller further being operable to transmit said zone activation command in response to a trigger condition.