The Avire Blog

Deferred Lift Maintenance (+lift maintenance checklist)

Lift maintenance is a major unfunded liability for building owners. It is imperative to recognize the challenge, identify the need and provide an ongoing funding mechanism to address it.

All you need to know about compliance and lift doors

Automated door operation is one of the most interacted with pieces of a lift. As doors are liable to hit people, unsurprisingly, they have become the number one source of lift-related lawsuits. To minimise the risk of injury, EN81-20 Standard provides guidelines to protect passengers. In this post we review how to ensure compliance and how these solutions work.

New Standard for Pictograms explained

2003 EN81-70 Standard for pictograms was updated in 2018 and moved to EN81-28. In this post we explain what this change means for passenger security and privacy.

3-2-1.. it’s lift phone test time

Facility managers are responsible for ensuring their emergency lift phones comply with the EN81-28 standards and its requirement for 3-day test calls. This easy guide provides an introduction to what test calls, how they work, and what the related risk is for building owners.

3-day test calls based on P100

In this post we explore the challenges P100 will face as we move into the digital switch and what solutions are available for emergency lift phones to ensure continued operability.

Emergency phone universal protocol: P100

Emergency lift phones can use many different protocols to perform the mandatory 3-day test calls, however the P100 is the most popular open-source protocol. In this post we explain what protocols are and how they work.

The ABCs of Lift IoTs

This handy glossary explains some commonly used terms referring to elevator communications and security.

Elevator Monitoring

A Lift Monitoring System (LMS) provides the current status of an elevator installation… but this useful tool could be the key to preventing elevator breakdowns!

How Panachrome Plus keeps your lifts safe, compliant, and protects them from expensive damage

When it comes to lift doors, building managers have two concerns: that they open and close, and that they don’t injure anyone. Basic lift light curtains are designed to help with the latter, and there is clear safety legislation that regulates how they should protect users from injury.

How to convince your manager to modernise your lift system

If your lift is starting to show its age, a full replacement will seem like an expensive proposition. But you can renew and extend the life-span of your lift by modernising it instead. How do you get buy-in on lift modernisation?

Six benefits of smart lifts

When people think of a ‘smart building’, they often think of technology that helps you monitor and control things like heating, lights, even occupancy levels. But many people don’t realise that smart technology is available for lifts too.

The slow death of DTMF signalling

As telecoms networks evolve to meet the latest demands of consumers and businesses the level of support for DTMF signalling (in fact all analogue signalling) is changing and sadly not for the better.

Offices of the future

The shift in working over the last few months has been unprecedented. The Covid-19 pandemic forced businesses to take a totally new approach to conventional working, across all industries. With employers having to change working practices almost overnight, leaving Facility Managers under increased pressure to make sure facilities are compliant.

How to reduce the impact of COVID-19 for lift passengers

Social distancing has potentially become the most used term of 2020 so far, and with the re-opening of buildings and the need to re-adjust to a ‘new normal’ it is a vital behaviour that will be a part of daily life for quite a while to come.

How often should maintenance be carried out on lifts?

A guide for Facilities Managers. This article includes information regarding how often a lift should be serviced, what the lift company will be looking at during maintenance and the regulations that lifts need to comply to.

Seeing Isn’t Believing – Camera and Infra-Red based TOF 3D vision systems

Infrared (IR) based light curtains have been the accepted way of protecting passengers from closing elevator doors since the 1990’s, however, over the last 5 years there have been numerous show stands exhibiting new and exciting technology, purporting to render light curtain technology obsolete. Despite these bold announcements in the market little appears to have changed, why? In this article we look to separate the facts from the hyperbole and in doing so set realistic expectations on what to expect over the coming years.

EN81-70:2018 For Touch Screens and Destination Control Systems

A few decades ago, touchscreen technology was only prevalent in science fiction. Nowadays daily life regularly features touchscreens, whether it be homes, cars, planes, stores, restaurants – they are ingrained into our daily lives.

Why use connected devices?

An overview of the trends in the industry outlining the benefits of gathering data on and around elevators - what information is being gathered and how it is of use to different parties.

What is a smart building?

Smart buildings are sometimes referred to as 'automated buildings', 'intelligent buildings' or buildings that incorporate smart technology. A smart building is any structure that uses automated processes to automatically control the building’s operations including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, vertical transportation and other systems.

Maintenance and Modernisation market about to grow in China

Recently, the elevator maintenance and modernisation market has become a hot topic in China. This article will address the current status of China's elevator maintenance and modernisation market from the perspective of market information, laws and regulations.

Top Tips for Autodialler Installations

Most autodiallers (also known as emergency telephones) will be installed without issue but if you do run into trouble here are some helpful tips that our technical team have compiled to assist you in resolving any problems.

Child safety in lifts

Lifts are one of the safest forms of transportation provided that they are correctly installed, and regularly and thoroughly maintained. Every year, however, many children are harmed or killed in lifts. Young children, especially those younger than 5 years of age, often lack the strength, coordination, balance, and protective reflexes to avoid injury.

What is CANBus?

CANBus (Controller Area Network) is a vehicle bus standard designed to allow smart devices to communicate with each other through a robust, low-cost message-based protocol.

Understanding Cellular Networks

As the elevator industry advances towards connectivity and the Internet of Things (IoT), it is important to understand the cellular network types used.

The History of Lifts: Where did it all begin?

Interesting lift fact: as a group, they carry the equivalent of the world’s population in three days. They have played an important role in shaping our world and our lives.

The Most Effective Elevator Door-Edge Safety Systems with LED and 3D Technologies

Light curtains for elevator door edges have been the established technology for protecting passengers from door impacts for many years. Their usage is described in the relevant codes in many regions and some basic light curtains can meet the standards.

Advertising on elevator LCD displays

LCD display installations are becoming much more popular when replacing traditional dot matrix displays. With the growth of LCD displays there is clearly an improved visual benefit as you can display richer graphical content but there is also the opportunity for advertising on screens. This can be specifically targeted at demographics based on the installation space.

Autodiallers and Internet Protocol (IP) phone systems

There are two instances where a customer may need to connect an autodialler to a digital line.

Smart Elevators Use Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services – servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics and more – over the Internet (“the cloud”).

Analogue to fibre… What does this mean for the lift industry?

Lift emergency phone regulations require that emergency-communication phones be available at all times for lift passengers in the event they become trapped in a lift. Traditionally this requirement is met with the employment of fixed landlines as the means of transmission for lift emergency phones.

Lift Connectivity

Connectivity within the lift industry using the latest elevator technology provides many benefits to providers, owners, and passengers, leading to a broader understanding of lift use and maintenance.

When will 2G networks be turned off?

The implementation of faster and more efficient 3G and 4G networks have reduced the demand for 2G. Providers have reassessed the need to provide 2G and are gradually decommissioning the 2G network.

Cellular Technology for Elevator Emergency Phones

With the evolution of cellular technology, the case for employing mobile phones in elevator communications has become compelling. In this article, we address many common concerns regarding the use of cellular to provide service to elevator emergency phones.

Energy-efficiency and Lifts

Lifts typically use 3 to 5% of the overall energy consumption of a building. Can we reduce this significant energy consumption and develop green, energy-efficient lifts?

What is an M2M SIM Card?

This article discusses what SIM cards are, the different types of SIM cards and which SIM cards are the best for use in the elevator market.

EN81-28:2018 – What You Need to Know

Since 2003, Part 28 has been the industry’s reference for installing, testing, and designing emergency telephones. Now in 2018 we are seeing a major revision. How will the revision affect you?

Radio Equipment Directive (RED) – Overview and Impact for Lifts

The Radio Equipment Directive (RED) establishes a regulatory framework for “making available on the market” and “putting into service” radio equipment in the European Union. It replaced the prior directive (R&TTE 1999/5/EC) and was effective 13 June 2017.

Are SIM cards safe as lift components?

Over seven billion SIM cards are in active use globally making them the most widely used security token in the world. Over-the-air (OTA) updates can be deployed by SMS which allows the SIMs to be updated remotely. However, lift engineers have concerns relating to SIM hacking which could mean soaring premium rate bills.

EN81-71: Lift standards for Vandal Resistant Lift Components

Vandalism is a major concern for lift owners; damage through misuse and abuse impacts both the availability of lifts, and passenger safety. EN81-71:2018 is a harmonised European Standard which outlines additional protective measures to improve the vandal resistance of lift installations.

Light Immunity Explained

How do Avire’s light curtains achieve enhanced light immunity?

Lift door safety

When selecting a suitable light curtain for your lift door safety application it is important to consider several factors before making your decision. Diode count, number of beams and response time all play a part in determining the relative performance of a particular detector, and no feature should be judged in isolation.

Elevator Safety, Door Edges & EN81 Lift Standards

As of September 2017 all new lifts must comply with EN81-20 and EN81-50 Elevator Standards. These standards were approved in 2014 to replace EN81-1 and EN81-2, and after a grace period for the elevator maintenance and installation industry to prepare, these elevator standards are now mandatory for all new lifts.

EN81-72 Fire-Fighting Lift Regulations

In 2015, the European Committee for Standardisation released an update to the standard for the installation of Firefighter Lifts, EN81-72:2015. This replaced the 2003 version of the same standard.

EN81-20 Detectors

In August 2014 two new standards covering lift design (EN 81-20:2014) and installation requirements (EN 81-50:2014) were released in Europe. These replace EN 81-1:1998+A3:2009 and EN 81-2:1998+A3:2009, which were 15 years old and needed upgrading to comply with modern safety requirements. It is expected that the new standards will also be adopted in China, South America and Australia.

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