Wireless fire protection valve inspection and monitoring systems, and methods for automated inspection and monitoring of fire protection systems

A method for automatically inspecting and monitoring a fire protection system, comprising:

• retrofitting a smart lock onto at least one existing fire protection system valve, each valve movable through a range of valve positions including a fully-open position, a fully-closed position, and partially-open positions and partially-dosed positions between the fully-open and fully-closed positions,
• each smart lock including a detecting unit adapted to detect valve state information corresponding to the valve position, the valve state information including a first detection state and a second detection state;
• calibrating the detecting unit to store a range of valve positions corresponding to the first detection state, the first detection state corresponding to an open range of valve positions including the fully-open position;
• calibrating the detecting unit to store a range of valve positions corresponding to the second detection state, the second detection state corresponding to a dosed range of valve positions including the fully-closed position and a partially open/closed range comprising the partially-open and partially-closed positions;
• transmitting the valve state information from the smart lock, wherein the valve state information is transmitted via a wireless RE communication interface;
• wirelessly receiving the valve state of each valve from the at least one smart lock using a collection unit via the wireless RF communication interface;
• transmitting the valve state of each valve indicating the first detection state or the second detection state from the collection unit to an information nodule;
• and
• transmitting the valve state of each valve indicating the first detection state or the second detection state from the information module to a building information systems and maintenance management program.