TIC Evaluations?

[FireFLIRMgr]

As a product manager, I am responsible for determining what products look like, and what they do. I have been extremely impressed with several of the objective and thorough described on this forum. I was specially interested in the detailed evaluation conducted by JAPFE. As I understand it, your department settled on the Viper. Would you give us an update? Is that what you bought? Has the product met with the expectations derived form your evaluation? Have you discovered any noteworthy observations (pos/neg) about the product? Is there anything in your evaluation process that you would do differently?

I am sure you have been down this road some time ago, but why was your evaluation relegated to hand-held only? Has your department had any exposure to new & current hand's free products?

Greg Hall
Product Manager
FireFLIR

[JAPFPE]

fireFLIRmgr (aka Greg Hall),
Thanks for your interest in my department's evaluation of TIC's. Yes, "we" (read: you and I) have "been down this road before" since we previously exchanged e-mails over pretty much the same questions.

We have not recieved our Cairns Viper yet so I cannot comment with regard to whether or not the camera has met our expectations. Cairns has sold production units so maybe someone else can provide comments on whether the camera meets expectations.

With regard to what we would have done differently, check out my post under the Live Fire Evaluation thread which nj_lawyer initiated. Previous posts would also address your question regarding why we chose to go with a hand-held unit versus helmet- mounted.

An important point which I will make again is that the selection of a TIC should be made based on YOUR department's needs and desires. Each of our departments are different and so we will have different needs and operational restraints. There is no single TIC which will best meet the needs of ALL departments. If there is any manufacturer out there who DISAGREES, I encourage you to post your comments.

I will offer one final comment. Our committee was extremely satisfied when a TIC rep called to say "Thanks for conducting such a detailed and FAIR" evalaution. The important point is that the comment was made by a rep whose TIC was not considered beyond the initial part of our evalaution.

Joe Pechacek
Hamilton Fire Department
Hamilton, NY