FireCAD Update - What's New

FireCAD 2026 — Built For the Future of Fire Design!

The FireCAD Add-in for AutoCAD is now fully compatible with AutoCAD 2025, 2026, and 2027. Additionally, FireCAD 2026 Standalone is now available, built with the latest AutoCAD OEM 2026 engine.

For common installation issues see this article — FireCAD 2026 - Common Installation Issues

Update — May 2026

AutoCAD 2027 Support

The FireCAD Add-in now loads in AutoCAD 2027 alongside AutoCAD 2025 and 2026. One install supports all three.

Project Circuits Palette — Tree View

The Project Circuits Palette is now a hierarchical tree that nests devices under their branch origin instead of the previous flat list. Reorganizing circuits is now drag-and-drop, and changes are staged until you click Apply.

• Drag and drop to move devices between trunks and branches. A visual line shows where the device will land before you let go. Dragging multiple selected devices keeps their children with them.
• Right-click any device for Move Up, Move Down, Move to Trunk, or Move to Branch ▸ (with a submenu listing each branch parent on the circuit). Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down move devices with the keyboard.
• Move to Branch ▸ origin creates a real branch off the circuit origin instead of just adding another device on the trunk.
• Apply / Reset banner stays pinned at the top of the palette. Nothing changes in your project until you click Apply; Reset throws away pending changes.
• Branch numbers stay clean automatically. Dragging a device into an existing branch picks up that branch's number, and the Branch column always shows the number you'll see after Apply.

Riser Diagram Polish

Building on the Riser Diagram V2 work from March, this update adds several refinements:

• "Show All Circuit Labels" now works on the A (NonDuplicating) riser in addition to B and C. When the option is on, every device shows address labels for every circuit it belongs to — including circuits you didn't select for the current riser run.
• Entity properties on every device type — Selected entity properties (Panel, Location, Zone, etc.) now appear on every device on the riser, not just on initiating devices.
• Distributed labels by default — New risers default to the 4-corner layout: addresses bottom-right, settings top-right, entity properties top-left, markers bottom-left.
• Voltage at device — Voltage is shown directly below the address. Devices below the circuit minimum voltage are highlighted red. On Summary (E) risers and Typical circuits, voltage and entity properties are skipped since they aren't meaningful there.
• Consistent label ordering — When a device is on multiple circuits, labels sort in the same order every time you regenerate the riser.
• Right-to-Left columns — RTL circuits now mirror correctly, and child circuits follow the same column layout as their parent.
• Settings table — Lists only the settings you can actually change, not every internal flag.

Entity Properties Editor — Workbook Export & Import

The Entity Properties Excel export/import has been redesigned to be easier to read and edit.

• One row per device — Reference columns (Drawing, Device Handle, Manufacturer, Part Number, Circuits) followed by the standard property columns: Panel, Location, Building, Floor, Application, Note, and the new Zone column. Any custom properties you've added show up as their own columns automatically.
• Circuits column matches the floorplan — The address shown in the Circuits cell is the same address that's drawn on the device. If a device is on multiple circuits, each address is on its own line.
• Friendlier import — Column names match case-insensitively, blank cells delete the value, filled cells update it. You can add new columns outside the original Excel table and they'll still be imported. After import, the floorplan refreshes automatically.
• New Zone field — Added to the standard property list in the Device Properties dialog and aligned with the Zone value used by the Inspect Point integration.

Combo Device Addressing — "Apply Device Address Qty" Flag

Combo devices like speaker/strobes have an address quantity of 2 (one for the speaker, one for the strobe). Until now, FireCAD applied that count on every connection — so the same device claimed 2 addresses on its SLC input AND 2 on its NAC output, which wasn't right.

A new "Apply Device Address Qty" checkbox on each Device Type Template lets you control when the multi-address count actually applies:

• Check the box on connections where the device should use its full address range (for example, the SLC input on a speaker/strobe combo).
• Leave the box unchecked on connections that should always use one address (for example, the NAC output on the same device).
• Set this on the Device Type Template grid in the Master Template Editor.
• Devices with an address quantity of 1 always get one address, regardless of the checkbox. The checkbox only affects devices with a quantity above 1.

This fixes long-running issues where combo devices over-counted addresses on Potter, Edwards, and other panel programmer exports.

"Edit Block In Place" Now Works on FireCAD Devices

When you use AutoCAD's Edit Block In Place (REFEDIT) on a FireCAD device, AutoCAD renames the working copy with a number on the end. FireCAD used to lose track of these devices — they wouldn't show up in validation, selection, reports, or risers.

• FireCAD now recognizes the renamed block as the original device everywhere.
• Original blocks are still preferred for legends and risers; the renamed copy is only used when nothing else is available.
• A new Block Recognition checkbox in Options (Tools tab) lets you turn this on or off (default on). Turning it off pops a warning since FireCAD will then disconnect any in-place-edited devices.

Potter Programmer Export — More Reliable

The Potter panel-programmer export has been improved across the board:

• Better error messages when a device is missing its panel template, so you know exactly what's missing instead of getting a half-finished export.
• Sub-addresses stay in order when one is skipped (no more gaps in the numbering).
• V-series panel models export with the correct model name.

Faster on Large Projects

A round of speed work on the operations that slowed down most on big drawings:

• Label refresh — Around 4× faster on large drawings. On a 6,500-device test drawing, the refresh now takes about 6 seconds instead of 22.
• Auto-polyline drawing — Noticeably faster after-draw cleanup on big projects.
• Validation cleanup — Significantly faster when validation has thousands of items to process.
• Set Device Circuits dialog — Opens quickly even on very large projects.
• Project Import — Imports complete faster, and a log entry now records how long any unusually long import took.

Stability

• Saving to OneDrive, SharePoint, and network drives now works reliably. If a save can't complete, FireCAD keeps a verified copy on your local drive and shows you exactly where to find it.
• Error and prompt dialogs always appear on top so they don't get hidden behind progress bars or other windows.
• Fewer AutoCAD crashes from FireCAD palettes when a circuit has unusual data.

Bug Fixes

• Summary riser — Device labels stay address-only as intended.
• ATTSYNC — Edits to in-place-edited blocks now save back to the correct block.
• Branch distance — Calculated correctly for branches whose wirepath has no drawn segments yet.
• Riser entity properties — Match case-insensitively, and multi-line text in labels displays consistently.
• Entity Properties import — Passthrough device addresses recalculate after import so the floorplan stays in sync.
• CSV / Excel export — Commas inside quoted cells are parsed correctly on Entity Properties export.
• Address range warning — FireCAD now warns when a multi-address device would be collapsed to a single address by a configuration issue, instead of doing it silently.
• Label refresh — Detects when a label's height or background mask is out of date and rebuilds it.

Behind the Scenes

• Project Circuits palette and tree controls updated to the latest Telerik UI library.
• Installer build pipeline hardened to prevent version-mismatched releases from shipping.

Previous Releases

See Previous Release Notes for updates from March 2026 and earlier.

FireCAD is the industry-leading AutoCAD add-in for fire alarm system design — from circuit layout to wire routing to code-compliant reports.
Learn more and get started at getfirecad.com →

Inspect Point Integration — Fire alarm system device lists and bill of materials can be pushed directly from FireCAD into Inspect Point, eliminating manual data entry and ensuring every device is ready for inspection scheduling and ongoing asset management.
Learn more here →