Johnson Controls Clear Warning

**Company** | Johnson Controls **Formerly*** Tyco Integrated Security (????-2016)
 **Type of siren** | Directional Electronic

The **Clear Warning** is an electronic siren produced by Johnson Controls, and formerly Tyco Integrated Security and the ADT Corporation. The Clear Warning is unique from other electronic sirens in that it uses planar speaker arrays, leading to the siren delivering clearer voice messages then many of its competitors, solving a common problem that many other electronic sirens have.

Despite this benefit, the Clear Warning never saw widespread success, being a lackluster siren created for such a niche market, essentially being glorified PA speakers that were only good for voice messages at a short distance. Due to this, ADT dropped the siren, bowing out of the siren market almost as soon as they entered. After ADT dropped the siren, the Clear Warning was later picked up by Tyco Integrated Security, who continued to produce the siren under their brand and still does to this day.

The Clear Warning was first introduced around 2006 after the White House issued an executive order requiring all government agencies, private and public institutions, and emergency responders charged with public safety to adopt "public alert and warning protocols and systems to secure delivery of coordinated messages to the American people." In response to this, The ADT Corporation introduced the Clear Warning in early 2006. The Clear Warning was an electronic siren that utilized planar speaker arrays, which reduced the distortion and incoherency of voice messages, common in traditional electronic sirens. These planar speakers allowed for clear voice messages to be played over the siren.

    The Clear Warning can be heard for approximately 1,200 feet away, according to Tyco. The Clear Warning was popular with locations such as military bases and college campuses, which is where a majority of units are located today. The siren also had the added value of preforming routine daily communication functions.

The "heart" of the Clear Warning is its Central Control Unit, or CCU, that featured a PC based GUI, which is capable of displaying customized maps, the status of all Remote Speaker Systems, or RSS, and activating messages on individual Clear Warnings. The CCU can also schedule unattended playback of recorded messages and live broadcast. The CCU works by communicating with each RSS via UHF, VHF, wide and narrow band frequencies, as well as wired fiber optic and wireless broadband connections. The RSS units are essentially self-powered "sound systems", featuring a digital recorder player within the central processing unit, a 4-channel amplifier, DC power, and lightning and surge suppression. RSS units can be permanently mounted onto buildings or poles and could be deployed on self-contained mobile trailer units. The Clear Warning can also be solar powered, installed with a generator or video surveillance cameras. Clear Warning units can be integrated with text signage and radio alerts according to ADT.

Despite these benefits, the Clear Warning is not without its issues. There are two main problems with the siren:

* The first is that the design of the planar speakers hampered the "360-degree coverage" ADT had advertised. Contrary to this statement, the Clear Warning has 4 coverage gaps in between the speaker arrays, which makes it difficult, if not impossible for someone inside of these gaps to hear the siren.
* The second, and most important issue, is the fact that the Clear Warning was created for a niche market with low standards. The siren is only good for delivering voice messages at a short distance away because of this and is much more akin to PA speakers rather than a fully-fledged siren. This has led to many Clear Warning units getting replaced with sirens such as Whelen WPS-2900s.

These issues were enough to doom the Clear Warning. ADT took notice of this and made the decision to cease producing the siren, as it was clear ADT just wasn't a big enough competitor to companies such as Federal Signal or Whelen. This would not be the end of the Clear Warning, as around this time, a company named Tyco Integrated Systems picked up the Clear Warning and sold the siren until 2016, when it merged with Johnson Controls, who still sells the siren.

## References

1. ↑ Tyco Integrated Security's Clear Warning System
2. ↑ The Siren Board