Even if you’re not sold on having a fully connected smart home, we hope you’ll at least give a smart smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarm some serious thought. Instead of just sounding an alarm when you’re home, a smart smoke/CO alarm can also send you notifications when you’re not there, such as when the alarm is installed in a rental or a loved one’s house.
One major shortcoming of traditional alarms is that they can suddenly cease working, whether because you pushed them off the ceiling with a broom or because the batteries ran out. Nearly three out of every five home fire deaths in the United States occurred in dwellings without smoke alarms or in dwellings with smoke alarms that did not work, according to a report from 2021. Almost half of the non-functioning alarms had dead batteries or disconnected batteries. To avoid having a non-functioning alarm in your house, most modern alarms will notify you of their battery status in the app and allow you to silence “nuisance” alarms remotely (through your phone) or locally (via a button on the device) to avoid having to remove the battery.
There is less of a chance that you will accidentally disable the alarm in a fit of frustration after you’ve burned the popcorn if you have a smart alarm that can be silenced from your phone rather than needing you to mount a ladder or wave around a broom. As an added layer of security, if your home doesn’t already have a physical connectivity between smoke alarms, most modern models can communicate with one other wirelessly so that if one goes off, they all do.
Even if you’re not sold on the concept of smart homes, we hope you’ll at least give a smart smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarm some serious thought.
If you have a professionally monitored security system, installing a smoke and carbon monoxide detector that is also compatible with your system can save your life in the event of an emergency.
It’s important to remember that certain smoke alarms reach their “end of life” 10 years after the date of manufacturing, not the date of installation. Any alarm using a 10-year sealed battery as its principal power source must meet this UL and NFPA regulation. Furthermore, sensors in certain alarms may expire earlier than that, so always verify the expiration date on the device before purchasing.
One of the main selling points of modern smart alarms is that they do away with the annoying “2am mystery battery chirps.” True, but only if you follow the app’s instructions and swap out the batteries when they tell you to. The alarm will start beeping at you if you don’t (another UL safety requirement).
A smoke alarm monitor is an alternative to installing additional smart smoke detectors if you already have a fully functional system installed in your home or if you just do not wish to spend the extra money (see Smoke alarm monitors for more info). When these gadgets or services detect the sound of a standard smoke or CO detector, they will notify you via your preferred method of contact, such as your smartphone. While you won’t be able to silence your alarm with one of these gadgets, you can rest assured that you’ll be alerted immediately to any problems in your house.
To dependably and gently notify you to potential danger, whether you’re at home or away, google nest protect wired smoke and carbon monoxide detector, now in its second generation, is the ideal smart smoke alarm for everyone. Multiple Protects may communicate with one another wirelessly, and the gadget does self-checks and sends notifications to your smartphone in the event of a malfunction or low battery (without the usual unpleasant chirps). The Protect’s app allows you to turn off annoying notifications, so you won’t have to resort to turning it off altogether when you get frustrated (as many people do when an alarm starts chirping). When it comes to smart alarms, the Protect is also the easiest to set up and manage. Take note that Nest is putting out a revised model that satisfies the most recent UL criteria (specifically UL217v8). If you want to make sure you’re getting the most up-to-date model, search for the UL217v8 label or the line “Helps decrease cooking nuisance alerts” in the product description.
Using a photoelectric Split-Spectrum Sensor, Nest Protect is said to be able to detect fast-burning flames more quickly than typical photoelectric sensors, with performance more akin to that of ionisation sensors. This is made possible by the Protect’s use of a second LED that is sensitive to the smaller particles produced by fast-burning fires but less susceptible to false alarms. Tests verified this to be true: in the past six years, there have been zero nuisance.
