Feniex 4200 Siren/Light Controller WOW!

[Carlos SpicyWeiner]

First off... this thing looks incredibly awesome! I can't wait to buy one for my patrol car.


-Two LEDs for each button (red for off, green for on)


-will communicate in real time with a smartphone or tablet


-will be blue tooth controlled (not wi-fi) (added price)


-can completely hide the control head in trunk if you choose or use it up front and switch between tablet and control head


-Will have software interface for control head for laptop and can be programmed on the fly in the field


-will have a light only controller


-siren functions are add on charge


-Relays will be solid state


-New improved tones


-Application may long term have added voice control (not at this time)


-codeing and testing has been EXTENSIVE


-programing will be able to be updated by the end user and does not have to be sent back to the manufacturer if there are programming bugs


-Avatar's RJ45 port will operate directly with the control head and give more programability


-every button is FULLY programmable


-32 outputs!


-buttons can have on/off, momentary, and timer functions


Still in final product testing and will available in 4-6 weeks.


I'll post the teaser video in a few moments.

 

[pdk9]

Sorry to be the negative one, but this personally doesn't impress me much. Some of the stuff sounds interesting, but I have no use for those concepts. I honestly just need a control head/siren that is dependable, does the basic functions (ie TA, slide switch so I can do rear only or all lights, alleys, etc), and effective siren tones that don't sound like they're coming from a tyco toy.


Also, I figure if I plan it out and have the installers set everything up right the 1st time, then there's no need to be able to do any programming in the field.


Stuff like Bluetooth, voice control, and interfacing with various non-warning devices seem like a waste of $ to me (as I'm sure it'll come with a hefty price tag), and I'd be happy with pretty much any FedSig or whelen siren/control combo (ie 295 siren/switch box, cencom, etc)

 

[Doug]

 

[Carlos SpicyWeiner]

I think many will be impressed by the pricing structure. I can use quite a few of functions and will test it out. Ill pull my 380r out of the patrol car to try it out.

 

[VecTecLighting]

I have to agree, I see this New Controller being a very impressive unit, Not only with a competitive price structure but also with over all functionality.

 

[Tom]

That's truly innovative. I can't believe they integrated phones and tablets into the controller, how smart!! I am very impressed

 

[Eric1249]

It is cool. But what would you use it for? Just curious.

 

[Tom]

It is cool. But what would you use it for? Just curious.

What do you mean?

 

[Eric1249]

Why would you want the controls on your phone? Would there be a good reason to operate your lights/siren when you are not in your car?

 

[Carlos SpicyWeiner]

It is cool. But what would you use it for? Just curious.

Here are a couple quick ways I see myself using it:


-my agency installs the controll panel under the laptop stand. I would like to have my Ipad attached to the back of my laptop screen. When I run code, I can flip my laptop screen down and have instant access to my emergency eqiuipment without taking my hands far from the wheel. Things like horn and siren tones will be very simple and easy to change


-if they do come out with voice recognition, howe does that not improve overall safety as well?


-also, if I have it on my phone, I can shut the lights down or change modes from outside of the car. Once I do my traffic stop I can allow the light to remain in one mode and I can change it from outside the car (in close proximity) without having to 1) take my eyes off occupants and 2) worrry about getting in the car while on the side of the road to flip said switches


-I can hide the control head in a center console of a car, but a detective can have their Bluetooth ipad/phone type device on their dashboard for purposes of controlling equipment. No one would ever think twice about an ipad/iphone stan in the dash of a car like they would a hand held controller.


I can't wait to see it in the handsn of installers that are much more skilled and creative than I am.

 

[SireLite]

It looks good. No android app?


If it has enough range. You could be attending to someone at a traffic stop and decide to turn on more lights while talking to the person you pulled over. Giving the impression that there is also someone else in the patrol car. :thumbsup:

 

[Tom]

Why would you want the controls on your phone? Would there be a good reason to operate your lights/siren when you are not in your car?

I would say mostly for using it on your phone outside the vehicle. Personally, I can demo all of my equipment installed on my car from outside the vehicle w/o leaving the customer's side. That's pretty cool....

 

[mjberryjr]

I think it is a great idea for under cover vehicles and personal vehicles. I would love to have that much control over my lights but I just dont have room for a cencom or a smart siren but I always have my phone with me. It will be interesting to see how it works and if the bluetooth will conflict with the bluetooth in my car stereo. Very cool.

 

[Eric1249]

I would say mostly for using it on your phone outside the vehicle. Personally, I can demo all of my equipment installed on my car from outside the vehicle w/o leaving the customer's side. That's pretty cool....

Now that I can see. That would be pretty cool

 

[Carlos SpicyWeiner]

It looks good. No android app?

If it has enough range. You could be attending to someone at a traffic stop and decide to turn on more lights while talking to the person you pulled over. Giving the impression that there is also someone else in the patrol car. :thumbsup:

That will probably be coming as well. They are still developing and perfecting the smart phone apps. Like I said we are stilla bout 6 weeks away.


As far as range, they said the standard range has been limited to about ten feet. Not sure if there are bluetooth extenders or anything like that that can help yet.

I would say mostly for using it on your phone outside the vehicle. Personally, I can demo all of my equipment installed on my car from outside the vehicle w/o leaving the customer's side. That's pretty cool....

Never thought about that.. Just think how awesome of a "wow" factor that is to the common person.

I think it is a great idea for under cover vehicles and personal vehicles. I would love to have that much control over my lights but I just dont have room for a cencom or a smart siren but I always have my phone with me. It will be interesting to see how it works and if the bluetooth will conflict with the bluetooth in my car stereo. Very cool.

I think that you pair the bluetooth device with ONLY the control unit. Id ont think blue tooth frequencies interfere with each other.

 

[pdk9]

My biggest concern is just the reliance on stuff like blue tooth and voice controls. Yes, ordinary sirens/controllers are not immune from malfunctions, but I can see there being a lot of times where the Bluetooth signal will get messed up or that the voice recognition might misinterpret what you say (I can't tell you how many times I've tried voice dialing on my Motorola or iPhone cell and it gets does something completely different that what I asked it to, even months after it has had time to learn my voice, and I'm sure it's even worse with people with thick accents), and the more gizmos there are, the more things that can malfunction/break. Unfortunately, I'm a big believer in Murphy's law, and I just foresee something getting messed up at the wrong time.


There's no question in my mind that doing anything to keep the operators hands on the wheel and eyes on the road is definitely a great safety pro, but the con is that I would be heavily distracted if the system freezes/malfunctions and I have to adjust everything, or worrying that something is bound to go wrong. I can't remember the name of the company, and I'm sure somebody here will know what I'm talking about, but there was a company that came out a while ago with voice activated controls (ie officer can tell the system to activate the lights/sirens, run a vehicle's 28 thru the MDT on a Traffic stop, etc). Anybody know how they're doing, b/c I haven't heard them mentioned in a while?

 

[unlisted]

Moved to more appropriate forum..


And.. I think I may want.

 

[MEVS06]

This features would work perfect for my off duty jobs where I am out of my vehicle and could use a siren tone to warn vehicles of need be. That sounds like a neat feature.

 

[Jman423]

If this unit is all that its said to be, I'll finally be replacing my highly unreliable v1 Olympian controller. There are some very useful features and options with this unit, and the add-ons are an excellent way to let customers create only what they want/can afford. Like me... I don't need a siren, but I can make use of every other feature that thing has to offer. Now, there are no dedicated buttons being hogged up by siren functions. The slide-switch and integrated TA functions are nice too.


When I get my hands on one, I'll do another review to replace the "not-so-complete" review I did on the v2 siren unit. It was hard to finish a review on an unfinished product.

 

[Carlos SpicyWeiner]

My biggest concern is just the reliance on stuff like blue tooth and voice controls. Yes, ordinary sirens/controllers are not immune from malfunctions, but I can see there being a lot of times where the Bluetooth signal will get messed up or that the voice recognition might misinterpret what you say (I can't tell you how many times I've tried voice dialing on my Motorola or iPhone cell and it gets does something completely different that what I asked it to, even months after it has had time to learn my voice, and I'm sure it's even worse with people with thick accents), and the more gizmos there are, the more things that can malfunction/break. Unfortunately, I'm a big believer in Murphy's law, and I just foresee something getting messed up at the wrong time.

There's no question in my mind that doing anything to keep the operators hands on the wheel and eyes on the road is definitely a great safety pro, but the con is that I would be heavily distracted if the system freezes/malfunctions and I have to adjust everything, or worrying that something is bound to go wrong. I can't remember the name of the company, and I'm sure somebody here will know what I'm talking about, but there was a company that came out a while ago with voice activated controls (ie officer can tell the system to activate the lights/sirens, run a vehicle's 28 thru the MDT on a Traffic stop, etc). Anybody know how they're doing, b/c I haven't heard them mentioned in a while?

The good thing is that the fail safe is you always have the control head you can mount. My agency uses software we developed to run license plates and to do basic CAD functions. It has proven to be quite reliable.


I think overall, the versatility of this unit will set it apart. I have hated my siren/light controllers (code 3, fs, and whelen) until I got my Soundoff 380R. I love the 380r and only will pull it out to test the Feniex product.

Moved to more appropriate forum..

And.. I think I may want.

sorry... i think I just let the excitement overwhelm me :crazy:

This features would work perfect for my off duty jobs where I am out of my vehicle and could use a siren tone to warn vehicles of need be. That sounds like a neat feature.

Just depends on your distance. I WILL be buying one to test when they are available. I can't wait

 

[CPDG23]

Correct me if I am wrong but with all those outputs I could see adding a remote start and alarm on your vehicle which you could operate from your phone, tablet, or PC?


F'ing sweet. :woot:

 

[Jman423]

Correct me if I am wrong but with all those outputs I could see adding a remote start and alarm on your vehicle which you could operate from your phone, tablet, or PC?

F'ing sweet. :woot:

Well, keep in mind that bluetooth is not capable of long distance communication. That is not a limitation of this product, but instead a limitation of the bluetooth wireless technology. Good ideas though :thumbsup:

 

[Eric1249]

Correct me if I am wrong but with all those outputs I could see adding a remote start and alarm on your vehicle which you could operate from your phone, tablet, or PC?

F'ing sweet. :woot:

Now that would be cool. Man, I remember when strobes were cool. How things have changed

 

[CPDG23]

Well, keep in mind that bluetooth is not capable of long distance communication. That is not a limitation of this product, but instead a limitation of the bluetooth wireless technology. Good ideas though :thumbsup:

I wonder if you could add a bluetooth transmitter to your home network and dial up the Feniex controller from anywhere in the world (so long as your car was within range of the transmitter)?


There has to be a way to network this. You can network EVERYTHING these days.

 

[Jman423]

I wonder if you could add a bluetooth transmitter to your home network and dial up the Feniex controller from anywhere in the world (so long as your car was within range of the transmitter)?

There has to be a way to network this. You can network EVERYTHING these days.

Pfft!! BS!! My fridge STILL doesn't order food when I run out... and that came out years ago!

 

[CPDG23]

Pfft!! BS!! My fridge STILL doesn't order food when I run out... and that came out years ago!

For $3700 we can fix that issue.


28 cu. ft. 4-Door Refrigerator and 8" LCD Digital Display with Apps | Samsung Refrigerator RF4289HARS

 

[unlisted]

|Needs an option to hook up an external bluetooth antenna.. you know, so it can "hear" devices better outside the vehicle, as opposed to being surrounded by a tin can.

 

[Jman423]

|Needs an option to hook up an external bluetooth antenna.. you know, so it can "hear" devices better outside the vehicle, as opposed to being surrounded by a tin can.

While I understand the thought behind this... I don't think the system was designed to be used from outside the vehicle, otherwise they could have used WiFi instead, which has a far greater range and is supported by all of the latest gadgets.

 

[Jeremy0966]

I like it. Its a very good looking control head plus the Bluetooth feature is pretty awesome. The thing I'm most interested in are the siren tones and what they'll sound like. If there good i just might be picking one of these up :thumbsup:

 

[prestonlightbar1]

I think this is the same basic idea but without a standard control head in the console.

 

[Carlos SpicyWeiner]

I think this is the same basic idea but without a standard control head in the console.

yet no one uses that... I'm pretty sure we will see this unit in some actual patrol cars. I think windows priced themselves out of the segment

 

[SirenWorld.com]

From a demo standpoint the idea of standing outside the car with the customer and doing the entire demo without having to get in and out of the car would be amazing. I can't really picture a practical law enforcement use except for the iPad/Tablet as the in-car computer or covert operations. That being said... I can't wait to get rid of the Olympian and move up to this beast!

 

[badge22]

I can't wait to get one of these. Me and a couple of my guys are always arguing as to who has the best smartphone apps. I'm gunna kick there asses right off with this one. :woot:


It'll be like, yeah right, whatever...WHAT THE....

 

[proled]

Ask a silly question time.... nice idea, but what do you when the phone rings and you are driving to a emergency???? or you have to make a call ???? the screen on the phone normally shows who is calling or when you call shows a keypad / contacts etc, so then you have no access to all the emergency buttons.... ?

 

[EMT-BLS]

Ask a silly question time.... nice idea, but what do you when the phone rings and you are driving to a emergency???? or you have to make a call ???? the screen on the phone normally shows who is calling or when you call shows a keypad / contacts etc, so then you have no access to all the emergency buttons.... ?

I haven't demo-ed the system yet (but I will ASAP), but I'd imagine it'll be like any other app. When you get a phone call and you are on a app, the call just overrides it. Once the call is complete, it goes back to the app. I'd assume the app would not turn off the lights while you took the phone call, it's not a continuous stream of info that can't be broken. It only sends "on/off" packets of info as per the buttons that are pressed.

 

[proled]

I haven't demo-ed the system yet (but I will ASAP), but I'd imagine it'll be like any other app. When you get a phone call and you are on a app, the call just overrides it. Once the call is complete, it goes back to the app. I'd assume the app would not turn off the lights while you took the phone call, it's not a continuous stream of info that can't be broken. It only sends "on/off" packets of info as per the buttons that are pressed.

Oh yes I got that bit, I was thinking along the lines - when the phone call overrides the app. and you need to turn on or off a switch - surely you can't?

 

[unlisted]

Oh yes I got that bit, I was thinking along the lines - when the phone call overrides the app. and you need to turn on or off a switch - surely you can't?

That is why there is a real physical control panel..


Also I think it'd be very useful to be able to control functions from outside the vehicle.. (ie: external bluetooth antenna) There has been more than 1 time I've wanted to flip on a take down or alley light (or honk the air horn at someone) or change a warning/arrowstick pattern while not in my vehicle..

 

[rwo978]

Am I the only one who sees the whole 'smartphone/tablet' app as a gimmick?


EV operators complain about having buttons (cencom, SS2000) vs knob (pa300, TM delta) due to being able to 'feel' activation. Now we're going to touchscreen? That would seem like a further step back to me.


Not to mention, public perception. They bitch and complain about the computers as it is. Now, there's a smart phone or tablet running things. Not to mention, most states having 'wireless device laws prohibited' laws. ya, ya... EVs are exempt, but that's not the point.


I refer to this story...


New Technology Could Stop Distracted Officer Crashes | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

 

[pdk9]

Am I the only one who sees the whole 'smartphone/tablet' app as a gimmick?

EV operators complain about having buttons (cencom, SS2000) vs knob (pa300, TM delta) due to being able to 'feel' activation. Now we're going to touchscreen? That would seem like a further step back to me.

Thank you! It's nice to have someone else that isn't drooling over this new invention! I hated learning my way around a cencom pad while driving (it was like playing the piano blindly and counting in my mind which button activates which siren tone), but you can't even feel a touch screen button + there are gonna be tons of times where the operator is likely going to activate the wrong button, either because their finger is too big or because they hit the pad 1 mm too far to the side (it happens every time I try to input an address into my GPS while I'm looking at it, and that's the same concept, except the operator won't always be able to safely look at the screen for more than a split sec. IMHO). ie you my be trying to change the tone to hyperyelp as you're approaching/entering an intersection but you accidentally push a button that turns off the siren or turns off the lights all together.


Also, if I were making a traffic stop, my eyes are on the driver's hands and any other passenger, not on my iPhone or Samsung galaxy to activate an additional light or something.


Aside from it being useful on a demo vehicle (which accounts for < 1% of the upfitted vehicles out there), this is a waste of money, and I can honestly say that in 4 years of using the cencom, I have never had the need for more than the slide switch, the siren/horn tone buttons, and maybe like 2 of the remaining 8 or so buttons, let alone Bluetooth, touchscreen, connecting to other devices

 

[EMT-BLS]

Am I the only one who sees the whole 'smartphone/tablet' app as a gimmick?

EV operators complain about having buttons (cencom, SS2000) vs knob (pa300, TM delta) due to being able to 'feel' activation. Now we're going to touchscreen? That would seem like a further step back to me.


Not to mention, public perception. They bitch and complain about the computers as it is. Now, there's a smart phone or tablet running things. Not to mention, most states having 'wireless device laws prohibited' laws. ya, ya... EVs are exempt, but that's not the point.


I refer to this story...


New Technology Could Stop Distracted Officer Crashes | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Oh, it's most definitely a gimmick. But what's important to me is the innovation. It's a cool idea. Personally, my innovation would've been a remote keypad, eliminating one of the three billion cables the installers need to run. And if the officer wants to place the keypad elsewhere, or take it with him on a traffic stop, no problem.