Home Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Safety Issue with Smartrise Controllers Door Zone

Just wanted to give a heads-up to the community about another important safety issue with Smartrise controllers.
This time TSSA has flagged a serious concern, and they’re urging folks to get it checked out ASAP. While this is currently a mandate for the Canadian market, let's not forget that safety should always come first- whether you’re north of the border or right here in the US.
I’d recommend getting in touch with Smartrise tech support and addressing this issue quickly to keep things safe.

Here's the official notice from TSSA:
https://www.tssa.org/safety-issue-smartrise-sra-controller-door-zone

Stay safe out there, and let’s keep our industry running strong.

If this is happening in Canada it will happen in the US. We stopped buying Smartrise a while now.

Yeah, well, no deaths reported yet, so I guess we’re all good here in the US. Real men just keep buying the cheap stuff, LOL.

Smartrise controllers are the best

What controllers are you installing now?

C4 hydro. I love it

This TSSA thing is BS. Let's not overthink it.

Alex Elian,
Thank you for your post. I don’t think any safety concern shouldn’t be taken into consideration. I for one will look into it. Hopefully no one gets hurt from someone not willing to verify a safety concern.

I would also like to point out that TSSA isn’t the only one who has reported issues of this nature. Not only has the TSSA , the IUEC and SmartRise has as recently as December 10, 2024.

Work Safe and make good choices!

I've thought to myself before installing them its odd they only have one dz sensor.

Let me tell you, I've been doing this job for years and I know what I'm talking about. You only need one DZ sensor, that's it. All this fancy code thing just makes things more complicated than they need to be. And don't even get me started on the TSSA, those guys are a bunch of idiots. They're always trying to make us follow their stupid rules and regulations, but I know better. One DZ sensor is all you need, trust me.

Well considering based on the Name and Picture, that the poster above is one of the Owners of Smart rise, I could see why he would feel that way.

But what I do not see is how exactly does the legacy controller meet the code? Based on the Bulletin looks like the DZ Sensor was the device used for Unintended Car Movement. Which doesn't meet the code. Please enlighten us, on how exactly compliance is being achieved? Sorry I'm not gonna take your word for it when the safety of me and my crew are at risk!

2.19.2
...

(-b) any of the following shall not render the detection
means inoperative:

(-1) the occurrence of a single ground fault

(-2) the failure of any mechanically operated switch that does not meet the requirements of 2.26.4.3.1

(-3) the failure of any single magnetically operated
switch, contactor, or relay

(-4) the failure of any single solid-state device the failure of a software system not
conforming to 2.26.4.3.2

(2) The failure of any single mechanically operated
switch that does not meet the requirements of 2.26.4.3
shall not render the detection means inoperative.

He sounds exactly like the “bad guy” in one of those safety training videos right before someone dies.

Looks like the profile photo for the account alleging to be Alex Bouchez from Smartrise was created with a bit of cropping of the photo in this LinkedIn post

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/smar...ollers-activity-6787804751259140096-0L81

Add to that the rather bizarre series of comments made from that account that is practically brand new here on Vator Trader's forums, and I'm guessing that someone might be having some sort of "fun" with a fake profile.

Maybe one of the moderators here can confirm?

Alex is one of Smartrise owners and it it sounds like him based on the very shallow understanding/respect of functional safety.

The bigger issue is that they changed the design of their filed controller without notifying TSSA while still providing an attestation statement that the controller was identical to the filed design

Don't worry too much about that TSSA thing. They don't know much about safety. Smartrise is the best and cheapest elevator controller and is safe. Don't listen to competitors' nonsense.

Looks like they just released another software update (3.18e) to fix this issue since the first update (3.18c) wasn’t sufficient.

The real question is does this issue exist in the US and they are only fixing it in Canada because that’s where they’ve been caught. It looks pretty easy to test on controllers with CEDES and a single DZ mag sensor - short the DZ signal high and see if it runs with the doors open.

https://smartrise.us/storage/technical-manuals/June_2025/TSB-0017.pdf

Ontario’s Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) is the Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA).

When compared with other province/state/city-based AHJs in Canada and the USA, TSSA and its technical staff are amongst the most thorough when it comes to evaluating elevator controller designs against the requirements laid out in the ASME A17.1/CSA B44 Code, and when they “see something” they aren’t afraid to “say something”.

For this reason, it’s not surprising that TSSA identified this issue and are now pushing for it to be properly rectified. It seems reasonable to expect other AHJs to follow suit - if they sit around and do nothing and then an accident occurs, that’s going to be an awkward conversation for all involved.

I would assume all their controllers in the US are not code or safety compliant per TSSA . I don't want to be them when the Crap hits the fan !

As far as non-proprietary equipment is concerned, the only company I know that has ever built a non-proprietary elevator that actually works is TK Northern (now TK Canada). It's the only brand of elevator I've never been stuck in and never had a problem with. Design wise, they are a copycat of US Elevator with only 2% difference. The total number of northern elevators I've used is 132 and possibly more. Not just a couple. This is because Northern manufactures the entire elevator just like the big OEMs, rather than buying parts from other vendors.