DTec set to raise eyebrows

LAS VEGAS--Within the next month, video smoke detection provider DTec will be announcing deals “with some blue chip names that will make people really raise their eyebrows,” Ian Moore, DTec managing director, told Security Systems News at ISC West.

Video smoke detection, or VSD, uses algorithms to detect smoke and fire from standard CCTV footage. D-Tec is a subsidiary of AD Holdings Group, which also owns Dedicated Micros.

It's operated in the U.K. for several years, but just opened an office in the U.S. (in Atlanta) in the fall of 2007.

What's happened since then? A “major tie with Honeywell,” for one, where “hundreds of systems integrators” have been trained to “design, specify and ultimately to engineer” DTec's VSD system for end users.

The Honeywell deal “is the core of our business right now and will continue to be,” said Cliff Archibald, DTec senior systems engineer, who is based in the Atlanta office.

At this point, project “inquiries come from Honeywell, but the technical support and design is done by Cliff [and his team in Atlanta with back-up support from Dedicated Micros staff in Virginia],” said Moore.

In the near future, Honeywell will take over the commissioning of the systems.

On the drawing board right now, Moore said, are 50 projects comprising applications in aircraft hangars, road tunnels, and power generating stations.

DTec's business has grown “100 percent year-over-year for the past three years in the Middle East, Australia and the Far East,” Moore said.

As the technology gains more acceptance of VSD in codes and among AHJs, Moore expects business to grow rapidly in the United States. (As does DTec's lone competitor in the U.S. market, axonX of Sparks, Md.)

In addition, Moore said, DTec is awaiting UL approval - it currently has FM approval on its smoke and flame detector. When that happens, “all of the barriers will be taken away and it will open the floodgates of business.”