The famous Athens Capital Hotel required a five-star PA/voice alarm system to enhance the safety of its guests, opting for a Bosch Praesensa public address system.
First opened in 1930, the Athens Capital Hotel is the first of the Marriott’s Luxury Collection hotel group in Athens to renovate with a modern Bosch public address and voice alarm system, meeting the necessary EN 54 standards of the hotel while also improving the guest experience.
Bosch’s Praesensa system was selected by systems integrator, Simon Technologies, for the task: an IP-connected system that integrates a smart-power concept and integrated redundancy on both centralised and decentralised network topologies.
The bulk of the project follows a conventional hotel voice alarm system, with the design, cabling and installation all following the EN 54-16 standards. The system is based around the Praesensa public address system which consists of a Praesensa system controller, four desktop LCD call stations and a wall-mount LCD call station, with call station extensions.
The system is driven by eight eight-channel 600W amplifiers which send emergency messages to the hotel’s almost 600 Bosch loudspeakers in all areas of the hotel: Including public areas, corridors, restaurants, basement spaces and the guest rooms.
The new system also had to connect into the television sets in each guest room, facilitating the use of a room controller connected to the TV set in each room. The controller is operated and supervised by the PA/EVAC system, overriding the TV’s audio with transmission of evacuation messages in case of an emergency.
The IP-based system also used the existing cabling and IT network structure to ensure the hotel would meet its aims.
Simon Stamatiadis, CEO, Simon Technologies, commented: “Praesensa allowed us to satisfy the needs of the customer with much less equipment – specifically the number of amplifiers – and with the latest technologies by using the existing IT structure of the hotel.”