In today’s world, there is truly no reason for not to have a bell tone or physical bell to signal the start and end of each class period. When teachers can relay and audible sound to get a class started and to end a class they will be able to use their available time for teaching wisely.

Technology has made bells systems easy to install and to use. There are mainly two ways to initiate a bell sound. One way is a physical bell and the second is playing a bell tone at a scheduled time over a school speaker system. The result of both methods is the same. A bell schedule for the school day.

If you have a speaker system you could use a network tone generator to play a tone over the PA system. The network tone generator has scheduling software that is easy to use. All that is required is a windows-based pc to operate the software.

The software only requires you to enter your school bell class changes and to save the file. The tone generator is wired to your line in on your PA speaker system. The device has several trusted internet time sources pre-loaded into the software. You can use those sites as an accurate source or time or if you have an internal NTP server you can put the IP address of your server into the software.

A second way to have a reliable school bell system. The physical bells are wired to a controller’s relays. The relays turn the bells on and off at the scheduled time. Innovation Wireless offers two way to ring physical bells.

One way is a network relay controller. This is a LAN based product that is connected to your Ethernet. The scheduling software that is included with the device is where you would input your school bell schedule. The schedule is then downloaded to your controller. You will wire you bell or bells to the controller. The controller then turns on or off the bells the appropriate time. It is a quick and easy way to have a reliable and accurate bell system in your school.

The second method is a wireless bell system. A wireless bell system still requires the bells to be wired to a controller but the controller receives accurate and reliable time from a transmitter. The transmitter broadcast accurate GPS or NTP time. Accurate and reliable time assured you that the bell system will ring at the correct time.

The advantage of having the transmitter is that you can easily combine wireless school clocks to the system. The transmitter’s broadcast will keep the clocks and bell system accurate 24 hours a day seven days a week.

In summary, today’s school bell technology offers you many different methods to affordability have a bell system to improve the operational efficiency at a K-12 school.

Students, teachers, and administrators all benefit with a PA system. It allows for the broadcast of daily announcements. Daily announcements include schedule alerts, lunch menus, early dismissal, and school assemblies.

Outdoor speakers unite the outdoor with the indoor. At different times of the day and year, there is a good portion of the student body engaged in a variety of activities outside of the school building. This can be physical activities, such as event practices and sports. Therefore, when installing a school speaker system, you should always remember that you need to provide coverage to your outdoor areas including your parking lots.

The other operational aspects that speakers provide is the ability to play a bell, chime or any customized message at a scheduled time. Bell scheduling is a key element for the smooth operation of the school day. The signaling of the start of school, class changes, lunch and the end of the day dismissals is easily accomplished with an accurate and reliable school bell system.

Networks are almost universally available in a school to be it wireless and wired networks. By having these networks in place it could not be any easier to install a PA speaker system. The old analog systems of having head-end equipment and service contracts have been eliminated.

Today, with the Wi-Fi and PoE speaker systems they utilize the existing computer networks available in a school. Each one of these systems has different advantages.

Wi-Fi speakers allow you to place speakers at any location within your facility if you have a good wifi signal and you have electric power. The Wi-Fi systems come to you already configured to connect to your network. This information is stored within each individual speaker.

Once you apply power to the speaker it will automatically connect to your network and is ready for broadcasts.

Poe Speakers will get their electrical power from a PoE switch. You can locate a PoE speaker at any place where you have installed a LAN cable. Once plugged into your ethernet the speakers join your network and are ready for use.

The central hub will hold the software that allows for live broadcast, bell scheduling and playing of music or pre-recorded messages. The central hub is typically a small raspberry server that could fit in your hand. You access the server with any browser.

As you enter the server via a browser you are then able to communicate to an individual speaker, a group of speakers or do an all-call.

In summary, a school speaker system will help your institution with day to day operational aspects and emergency situations. The most effective method of communication in a school environment is audio.

In today’s world atomic clocks are used for many different commercial applications, such as telecommunications, science and technology and cost as much as $500,000. The benefit of accurate atomic clocks is realized everyday when we use our GPS navigation devices in our vehicles.

There are four Atomic clocks in each GPS satellite. These atomic clocks determine how accurate the GPS can locate a destination. The satellites broadcast time signals in a triangular fashion and GPS receivers on the earth can pinpoint their intended location. The accuracy of GPS satellites is normally within 1 meter of its targeted location.

Atomic clocks in GPS satellites are so accurate they can also be relied upon as a time source for wireless clock systems. In fact, Innovation Wireless use the time from GPS receivers as one of their time source options for their KRONOsync wireless clock system.

In looking at radio controlled atomic clocks we see that the time source is also an atomic clock, however, the broadcast method in which these clocks receive their time is the reason that so many organizations cannot rely on them for synchronized time in their facilities.

Radio Controlled Atomic Clocks receive their time from an AM radio signal broadcasted by WWVB in Fort Collins, CO. The National Institute of Technology and Standards, (NIST) broadcast the time under the call sign of WWVB. The broadcast  is a powerful broadcast and covers the majority of continental United States.

Synchronize clocks are a necessity for many organizations. Therefore, when WWVB started broadcasting the time many facilities managers were excited. Prior to the broadcast of time on WWVB; hospital, schools and businesses had to install expensive low voltage wired clock systems in order to achieve synchronized timing.

Low voltage wired systems have maintenance costs and it is not easy to add addition clocks or move clocks once the system is installed. Wireless clocks allow you to place a clock anywhere and at anytime.

When the government started broadcasting the time on WWVB many organizations started to install radio controlled atomic clocks. Facility managers saw the opportunity to eliminate the maintenance issues associated with wired clock systems and the ability to easily accommodate additional clock requests.  They were under the assumption that radio controlled atomic could place these clocks any place any time and the clocks would receive their daily time update from WWVB. These organizations were greatly disappointed.

The problem they encounter had to do with the characteristics of the AM radio signal. The AM broadcast from the NIST is capable of traveling great distance; coast to coast and this gave the whole country time coverage. The problem is that an AM signal even though it can travel great distances it is prone to skips certain valley or mountains and  has difficulty penetrating commercial building structures.

Let’s create an example to illustrate the problem. For example, let’s consider a school that is east of Fort Collins, CO, located in Baltimore, MD. The probability is good that the radio controlled atomic clocks placed on the west side of the school building (The side closer to Fort Collins, CO) will be able to pick up the WVBB broadcast. The problem will be that the radio controlled atomic clocks located in the interior of the building and eastern side will have difficulty synchronizing to the AM broadcast.

The need for reliable, accurate and synchronized clocks is important in many organizations but probably most important at hospitals and K-12 schools. School clocks in K-12 educational institutions need clocks to make ensure that a teacher can maximize available teaching time. When classes start on time and end on time the foundation for a great educational opportunity exist.

Hospitals have to chart time when a patient enters the hospital. They evaluate symptom based on time intervals. Medical procedures are started and stop based on time. Insurance claims are submitted based on time. Malpractice suits are won by the incorrect recording of time.

Innovation Wireless KRONOsync transmitter is able to synchronized all the clocks in a hospital. Hospitals like Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, Aurora Health Care, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, to name a few, use the KRONOsync transmitter to keep all their clocks displaying the same time all the time.

What makes the Innovation Wireless KRONOsync time clock system work all the time 24/7 in a single building, multiple buildings or on a campus when radio controlled atomic clocks do not synchronize? The answer is that the KRONOsync transmitter operates on a FCC licensed UHF signal and the transmitter is located at the customer’s site.

With the FCC compliant KRONOsync transmitter on site complete coverage for the facilities is assured. This guarantee gives customers the peace of mind that they can place a clock anywhere in their facilities and the clock will display accurate time and automatically adjust for daylight savings time.

In addition, to the KRONOsync transmitter delivering accurate time it can also provide K-12 wireless schools bells. Wireless Bells are achieved with Innovation Wireless’ tone generator. The tone generator picks up the time broadcasted from the KRONOsync transmitter and activates the the bell schedule wireless.

The failure of radio controlled clock to deliver synchronized time to clocks within facilities is corrected by the KRONOsync wireless clock system, thereby, providing institutions synchronized wireless clocks.

DST as we know it today has been around since 1916. Germany was the first country to adopt Daylight Savings Time. Germany was involved in World War I and in order to save fuel instituted a Daylight Savings Time program.

In ancient civilization, societies were always devising ways to adjust their schedule in order to take advantage of available natural light and, therefore, various methods of timekeeping were implored. In 1784, Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay on Daylight Saving Time. Currently, the DST debate on advancing the clocks forward to gain an extra hour of daylight remains charged with its critics and fans.

After Germany adopted Daylight Saving Time there was sporadic use of the concept by various countries, however, it wasn’t until after World War II that the United States, European Countries and a certain number of other countries permanently adopted DST.

Globalization and interdependence of different countries coupled with the fact that not all countries start and end their DST at the same time provides the critics of DST a louder voice. In the United Kingdom the Spring time change occurs on the last Sunday in March and the fall time change occurs on the last Sunday of October. The British name for Daylight Savings Time is “British Summer Time”.

The question that many people have asked  is why do we have Daylight Saving Time today given the technological advances in energy conservation. There is a big difference in the amount of energy used today for artificial lighting versus the amount of energy consumed in the past.

International Commerce and Logistics are always juggling the influence of Daylight Savings Time. International Supply Chains working 24 hours a day seven days a week must develop necessary adjustments for Daylight Saving Time. As one can imagine time changes have an impact on meetings, business travel, shipments, deliveries, etc…

Hospitals, K-12 Schools, Colleges and Universities have hundreds of clocks in their facilities. If these institutions do not have an automated method of adjusting for daylight saving time the time change becomes a maintenance nightmare. Twice a year, at the start of DST and at the end of DST an organization without an automated system must manually adjust their clocks. For this reason low voltage hard wired systems were invented and installed in facilities throughout the world.

These low voltage systems had their own set of maintenance problems for facility managers, nevertheless, it was better than no automated system at all. Innovation Wireless developed a 100% maintenance free wireless system that automatically adjust for DST without any of the maintenance issues associated with low voltage wired system. The KRONOsync Wireless Clock System automatically adjust for the time change in the Spring and Fall by broadcasting the correct time to all clocks within a facility.

The KRONOsync transmitter is capable of broadcasting either Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) time or Network Time Protocol, (NTP) time to all the wireless clocks in a facility and automatically adjusts the clocks for DST.

The key to any type of clock system is to have a reliable time source. A reliable time source is the foundation of an accurate and reliable synchronized clock system. The GPS method has the customer install a small Garmin GPS receiver to the outside of their building and retrieve time from GPS satellites. Each GPS satellite has 3 true atomic clocks to maintain accurate time.

The NTP time method requires the customer to connect the NTP receiver to their Ethernet computer network. The end result from either time source is that the KRONOsync transmitter will have a reliable time source to broadcast throughout their facility.

The transmitter broadcasts the correct time to the clocks 24/7. The receiver modules inside the clocks are tuned to the transmitter frequency. The digital and analog clocks pick up the broadcast time code and stay synchronized to that time, thereby, displaying the accurate time all the time.  Innovation Wireless’ customers in the United States have their clocks automatically adjusting at 2:00 am on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November the clocks.

The debate between whether we should continue with Daylight Savings Time or disband it will continue in United States and the world because of the vested interests of certain companies. These companies will continue to try to influence lawmakers to their side of the argument.  The winner of the debate will be who has the lobbyist with the most influence.

The Retailers Association in the USA has a highly effective lobby in Washington, DC and they are a strong supporter of DST. Their members benefit from when the time changes. The extra hour of daylight in the evening during the start of Daylight Saving Time provides potential consumers another hour of daylight. This extra hour of daylight in the Spring gets consumers out of the house and into the stores. The extra hour of daylight equals into millions of dollars of retail sales.   This is especially important to manufacturer of grills, patio furniture, etc…

The best use of available natural light does have a positive effect for many businesses and for those who have many clocks Innovation Wireless provides a solution to resolve the maintenance issues associated with DST.

Innovation Wireless leading the way in wireless synchronized time keeping systems around the world. As a global leader in time and communication systems we strive to design and develop easy to deploy systems for Schools, Universities, Hospitals and Businesses. Please feel free to contact us with your custom time management questions and we will be happy to deliver your custom application any where.

InnovationWireless.com announced the launch of their Power over Ethernet, (POE) clock line.  Innovation Wireless’ POE product line is focused on helping organizations manage and operate their entities. Now no matter what the size of the organization they can enjoy the benefits of a synchronized clock system in their facility.  The advantages of clocks displaying the same time all the time and automatically adjusting for daylight saving time has just become easier.

InnovationWireless.com a synchronized timing and communication company based in Culver City, CA, has over forty years experience in the manufacturing of wireless clocks and clock parts.   As an innovator in synchronized timing, their clocks have had a positive impact on organizations throughout the world.  In the United States you will find their products in hundreds of school districts and many well known names such as University of Texas, Good Samaritan Hospital and Amazon to name a few.  Outside the USA, Innovation Wireless has distributors in United Kingdom, Australia, Middle East, Singapore and Hong Kong.

When focusing on saving money and time products need to be engineered to provide the most value for the dollar.  Engineers do their best to find that balance between the cost of manufacturing and affordability.  This is where the years of experience becomes a factor.  Experience is the catalyst in manufacturing a product that is built for longevity but at an affordable cost.

There is no need to put a synchronized clock system in place just to have trouble with it three or four years later.  The objective is to install a clock system and have it work day in and day out without any maintenance for many years.

A POE clock system allows for years of synchronized timing throughout a facility.  Additionally, by using an Existing Ethernet network a company does not need to run electrical power.  All they need is an Ethernet connection.  The Ethernet provides complete control of the clock and the power to operate the clock.

The POE clock software residing on the computer network is able to control every clock on the system.  You can group clocks for specific applications.  For example, in a hospital, patient rooms can be scheduled to have their POE LED Digital Clocks dimmed at a certain time for the comfort of the patients.  Then in the morning the clocks would be scheduled to resume the clock’s normal brightness.  POE clocks provide you this type of control.

POE is an IEEE standard.  The standards written by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers are established to ensure interoperability between different manufacturers.  The POE clock specifications should state that the clock is in compliance with IEEE.  .

Click here to learn more about finding the right POE Clock for your organization: https://www.innovationwireless.com/products.html

Contact
Lisa Neff
888-559-5565
lisa (at)innovationwireless(dot)com
www.innovationwireless.com

The operational demand to have accurate and reliable time systems has always existed for many organizations in different industries. Time is the keystone of productivity.

In healthcare, hospital patients are charted by time as soon as they arrive at the hospital.  Medicines are administrated and medical procedures are performed based on accurate time. In K-12 schools and colleges where you are moving students from class to class, building to building based on a time schedule, accurate synchronized clocks are a requirement.  In business time is money; production and break schedules, meeting, etc… require accurate time in order for an organization to perform at their optimal level.

Until wireless clock systems became an option low voltage wired synchronized clock systems were the only way to obtain synchronized clocks. The wired systems provide for synchronized time but they also carry the added cost of maintenance and periodic service.

Advanced wireless clock technology from Innovation Wireless eliminates the maintenance issues, concerns and problems.  As an industry leading manufacturer of clocks, clock parts and components, Innovation Wireless researched available radio frequencies to build its wireless clock system. The result was that they adopted the 467 MHz frequency as the most efficient and powerful way to broadcast a time code.

At the 467 MHz frequency the customer is protected from interference by an FCC site license. This provides the customer not only with the most efficient and powerful frequency in the industry but also eliminates and separates itself from interference with Wifi and other wireless devices.

Organizations that need accurate reliable clocks in order to be more efficient and productive with their time rely on Innovation Wireless to deliver a high quality maintenance free clock system. Innovation Wireless’ customers span the entire spectrum of industry and government.

The linchpin of the synchronized wireless analog clocks is the Takane movement. This highly valued clock movement delivers the precision and quality needed to have a synchronized analog clock. Innovation Wireless chose the Takane movement because all press dies and molds for this movement are from top grade hardened steel. This all contributes to the clock’s extended product life, thereby, providing years of service and reliability.

Additionally, the efficiencies of this clock systems movement creates a positive impact on the battery life. With two standard D cell batteries the wireless analog clocks will only require a battery change every five years. When you purchase the battery operated analog clocks you can hang the clocks on the wall and not touch it for five years. A customer can mix and match both digital and analog clocks with all clocks automatically adjusting for daylight saving time.

The KronoSync transmitter is the heart of the wireless system. It receives its time from either GPS satellites or from the customer’s computer network. Either method is simple and straight forward and does not require any ongoing maintenance or programming.