Fire alarm device and system

A fire alarm system comprising:

• a plurality of fire alarm devices and a controller configured to control the fire alarm devices via a bus, each fire alarm device comprising:
• an application-specific integrated circuit for performing one or more of bus communication, smoke detection, and button status detection, wherein the application-specific integrated circuit comprises:
• a storage unit for storing configuration data, wherein the configuration data comprises an address code unique for the fire alarm device;
• a hardware encoder/decoder for communicating with a bus;
• and
• a logic circuit for receiving a parsed command from the hardware decoder and providing a returned command to the bus via the hardware encoder based on the configuration data, the returned command is used to indicate whether a fire exists, and wherein the returned command contains the unique address code;
• a bus interface, wherein the hardware encoder/decoder is configured to communicate with the bus via the bus interface;
• and
• a power management module coupled with the bus interface to power the application-specific integrated circuit based on a command on the bus, wherein the power management module is configured to, if there is a power failure, switch from a main power source to a backup power source;
• wherein the controller is configured to periodically send patrol commands to the fire alarm devices in order to monitor the proper operation of the fire alarm system and to give acoustic and/or optical alarms for specific faults.