Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Standard (public preview and publisher overview)

BS 5839-8:2023: Fire detection and fire alarm systems for buildings — Part 8: Design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of voice alarm systems — Code of practice

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/bsi-2023-5839-8/ · record checked 13 October 2026

  • British Standards Institution, committee FSH/12/5
  • British Standards Institution

Standards body (British Standards Institution)

Summary

The public preview identifies new assistive-listening and hearing-loss warning recommendations in the UK voice-alarm code of practice.

Key findings

  • The publisher overview covers systems that automatically broadcast speech or warning tones in response to a fire detection and alarm system, including systems with manual live emergency announcement facilities. Systems dependent solely on manual intervention are outside its scope, although it can guide their design.
  • The contents lists clause 12, Assistive listening systems, on printed page 18. The foreword, printed page III, identifies this as a new clause.
  • The foreword reports new recommendations to warn people who are deaf or have hearing loss in areas where they might be alone, and to activate their warning devices for both automatic and manual emergency broadcasts.
  • The foreword also reports a new recommendation against using audio inputs such as phones for emergency messages and control when they do not meet BS EN 54-16:2008. This concerns emergency inputs; it does not state a prohibition on listening through a phone.
  • The contents separately lists circuit fault monitoring and integrity, priorities, power supplies and standby supplies, commissioning and routine testing. The foreword describes the document as recommendations and guidance, rather than a specification.

Limits

Only the publisher overview and eight-page public preview were read; the preview ends at the foreword and does not include clause 12 or detailed standby-power recommendations. No claim about which listening technology clause 12 requires can be made from it. The BSI landing page lists publication as 13 October 2023, while the Knowledge page and preview foreword give 31 October 2023; the latter is used here. The expert-commentary preview contained only its cover and supplied no findings.

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Cited in

Cite this source

British Standards Institution, committee FSH/12/5. BS 5839-8:2023: Fire detection and fire alarm systems for buildings — Part 8: Design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of voice alarm systems — Code of practice. British Standards Institution. 31 October 2023. https://knowledge.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail?pid=000000000030437520 (accessed 13 October 2026).

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