HOCHIKI CORPORATION is updating the labeling of its fire alarm manual call points to bilingual Japanese-English labeling and will begin selling the products sequentially from October 2026. It has also published the results of a survey on the status of multilingual support.
HOCHIKI CORPORATION announced that it will change the labeling of the “Flat-Type Indicator-Equipped Manual Call Point” for fire alarm systems to bilingual Japanese-English labeling and begin selling the products sequentially from October 2026. There will be no changes to the product’s specifications, functions or external dimensions, and compatibility with existing products will be maintained. The company positions the initiative as an effort to improve ease of understanding in response to a social environment with increasingly diverse users.
In connection with this release, the company surveyed a total of 1,027 Japanese people and foreign residents in Japan to assess awareness and understanding of operation. The results showed that approximately 80% of respondents felt the need for multilingual support for disaster-prevention equipment, while the proportion who could identify the manual call point as disaster-prevention equipment from its appearance alone differed between Japanese and foreign respondents. These findings indicate the importance of labeling that makes it easier for users, including foreign residents, to identify disaster-prevention equipment intuitively.
The survey found that approximately 80% of Japanese respondents could identify the device as disaster-prevention equipment from its appearance alone, whereas more than half of foreign respondents could not. In addition, approximately 80% of respondents said that multilingual labeling, rather than Japanese-only labeling, was necessary, while ease of understanding the operating method and larger lettering were also cited as areas for improvement.
The announcement supports efforts to provide multilingual labeling for disaster-prevention equipment, and the company plans to continue providing products suited to increasingly diverse user environments. There will be no changes to the product specifications other than the labeling on the device nameplate and protective plate, and compatibility with existing products will be maintained.