School Bell System

[NetworkBoss]

Any recommendations for modern school bell system that powers over POE and is ethernet based?

[Boredguy]

Bodet's Harmony range is PoE as we looked at it previously instead of the normal Melody unit over DHF

[NetworkBoss]

Thank you. Is there a reason you didn't go forward? Do you have the traditional system? One of our schools do not have anything in place from the build of the schools from the DFE.

[Boredguy]

At the time the leadership team didn't want to spend the money to put in a new system for a lock down solution.  We've had a Bodet time clock installed for quite a while now, but mainly used relays to trigger the fire alarm class change.  Now we just use it to trigger our main fire alarm panel, and the several of our buildings just don't have any class change bells cause they are not connected to the main panel

[chris_uk]

We are looking at the Bodet system, buying through @Net-Ctrl  (Connor and Lee are both amazing...) We had a demo from the other other month. The whole system looks amazing. Big thing for us is being able to turn off lesson change over bells on sections for when exams are happening. 

 

[Net-Ctrl]

Thanks @chris_uk for the mention - @NetworkBoss, or anyone else for that matter, if you would like to discuss Bodet in any detail, please send me a PM or email me at [email protected] and I will make the necessary introductions to see if Bodet/Net-Ctrl might be a good fit for what you're trying to achieve.

[DWilson1997]

https://www.algosolutions.com/

[Rob_D]

+1 for Bodet.

We've been running Bodet for 6-7 years now (mostly for lesson changeover and more recently for lockdown). Works really well and have never had any real problems with it. You just need to plan where you're going to put your sounders so they can be heard in all the classrooms.

23 minutes ago, chris_uk said:

The whole system looks amazing. Big thing for us is being able to turn off lesson change over bells on sections for when exams are happening. 

 

Being able to do this is so useful. We also use it to play the Big Ben chimes and last post for Nov 11th, and have separate schedules for the last day of autumn and summer terms (with Christmassy bells at Christmas).

[Andycat]

We've just installed Bodet for clocks/bells/lockdown at Easter. Costly, but seems good so far. As mentioned, all turned off in exam venues etc. and the Trio had a very readable clock for the size. AutoTimeSystems looked after us, I think they split via regions on suppliers. (We're North)

[RobFuller]

Been really happy with our Axis Audio system but then it works for us with Axis camera and VMS. 

 

https://www.axis.com/products/network-audio

[FragglePete]

+1 for Bodet here also, have had it in place for a couple of years now.

 

Works well, main observations to note:

• The desktop software is a bit clunky, but does the job just takes a while to understand it.
• You upload .mp3 to 'slots' to each sounder (you can have up to 30 slots) which are triggered via Multicast - the upload process you can do in bulk with the software via FTP, but I find we have to 'reset' some sounders that don't always respond when uploading these files.  The Trio's have been the most troublesome - remote reset resolves the issue.
• Because it uses Multicast, make sure your network is configured to support it.  We had to switch on IGMP Snooping on the Unifi Switches as some sounders just stopped responding after a while but this resolved it.
• We have it on it's own VLAN and the desktop software needs to be on the same VLAN as the sounders to get full functionality.
• We use the Voice AI Generation tool in Canva to create the audio annoucements - we used it to create annoucements such as 'Lessons have now started' in English, French and Spanish as the Headteacher felt that as we teach these languages why not use them in annoucements?
• Added a couple of IP Boxes recently in each reception here which have the ability to sound the lock down alarm/annoucement from one push of a button.  Along with an evacuate alarm/annoucement.  Does have the ability to be able to trigger this if the fire alarm is enabled on the Master Clock but we haven't got this done just yet.  It's on my to do list.
• External Sounders require 240v to power them - will need an electrician to do these - thankfully, the network installer we used to add additional network ports to support the install had a qualified electrician as part of his team.
• You can stream audio from the desktop application which has been useful for things like Last Post, Christmas, ad-hoc messages, etc.
• Sigma Master Clock has an external GPS Antenna (optional, but we bought it) to get it's time data from which can then be used as a time server on your network. 
• We purchased from Bodet directly and they came onsite to do a site survey to recommend the placement and numbers you need.  Was helped that the sales guy at the time was relatively local but I think he has since left the company.

Overall, it's been a great system since we installed it.

 

Pete