Teams
Forum List
Toggle sidebar

Smoke/CO Alarms

MeowingCows

MeowingCows

Well-Known Member
Jun 1, 2015
43,158
46,254
113
Iowa
What does everyone buy for new alarms? I put in new ones from Costco over the summer, First Alert hardwire/backup/connected ones. I think they work but they are extremely sensitive...false alarms for humidity, miscooked food, possibly aerosol spray like deodorant spray that got away? kind of things. Maybe this is just how alarms are now? The issue mainly for me is the alarms are out of easy reach to silence. One went off this morning and wouldn't stop after being silenced, I had to climb up on top of furniture and get it off the ceiling completely.

With that limitation, I'm wondering if I should go to smart alarms. Nest Protects were the gold standard and really what I should've bought day one, but I didn't and now they aren't made anymore. It looks like First Alert took over what was leftover from Nest, but the reviews on them are rather poor. Kidde has a similar product without the Nest integration, but again, not great user reviews. There appears to be a third major option: these new Place products (made by Gentex) seem to also be intended to be a Nest replacement, but are bulky and imperfect compared to Nest... but generally seem to be better-received online than the other two from people already in that world. Less reviews/reports of things like false alarms and stuff... some people have gotten bad units out of box, but simply replaced them and done.

I think the basic question I have is whether or not smart alarms are worth it and work well. The upsides to me are control from the ground instead of a ladder, and in theory, to be able to know if something bad happened in my house without actually being there.
 
Had a CO/smoke detector combo and a dedicated CO detector go bad at the same time

That was fun, but I got to meet our local firefighters
 
MeowingCows said:
What does everyone buy for new alarms? I put in new ones from Costco over the summer, First Alert hardwire/backup/connected ones. I think they work but they are extremely sensitive...false alarms for humidity, miscooked food, possibly aerosol spray like deodorant spray that got away? kind of things. Maybe this is just how alarms are now? The issue mainly for me is the alarms are out of easy reach to silence. One went off this morning and wouldn't stop after being silenced, I had to climb up on top of furniture and get it off the ceiling completely.

With that limitation, I'm wondering if I should go to smart alarms. Nest Protects were the gold standard and really what I should've bought day one, but I didn't and now they aren't made anymore. It looks like First Alert took over what was leftover from Nest, but the reviews on them are rather poor. Kidde has a similar product without the Nest integration, but again, not great user reviews. There appears to be a third major option: these new Place products (made by Gentex) seem to also be intended to be a Nest replacement, but are bulky and imperfect compared to Nest... but generally seem to be better-received online than the other two from people already in that world. Less reviews/reports of things like false alarms and stuff... some people have gotten bad units out of box, but simply replaced them and done.

I think the basic question I have is whether or not smart alarms are worth it and work well. The upsides to me are control from the ground instead of a ladder, and in theory, to be able to know if something bad happened in my house without actually being there.
Click to expand...


Ugh, didnt realize this. I have two of them and Im sure they are getting pushed away. Sigh.
 
I think the house is hardwired with First Alert and you're right, I'm pretty sure they go off if we boil water too aggressively in our kitchen. Fire extinguishers in the kitchen, garage and living room.

I have a couple of these spread throughout the house too. We have a bunch of gas (fireplace, range, water heater, furnace) so I wanted some NG and CO alarms.


Based on my experience with most "smart" devices actually being dumb as ****, I have never had any interest in going smart for these.
 
We have the hardwired First Alert ones and I agree they can be sensitive at times but I guess on the other hand not a bad thing if we actually had a legit fire. The one near the kitchen if I am cooking anything that might cause it to get a little smoky in the room like bacon or anything you are cooking on high heat that could slightly burn I usually try to keep some windows so it hopefully won't trigger. A few times I maybe left the oven door open a little longer than usual that maybe the heat or smell set it off too.

The thing I hate about them the most is they seem to not last nearly as long as the 10 years they claim they should. They'll start chirping and even if you unplug them and put a brand new backup battery in will keep chirping then have to just replace it at that point. Had some start doing that after just 2-3 years sometimes.
 
I'm a huge home automation nerd but made the decision to replace all of my old detectors last year with non-smart ones

I do have a z-wave module to connect to my automation system that I plan to wire inline to the detector in my basement. The intention being to alert me if one of the detectors go off.

I could not find a smart detector that I thought was worth the hassle. And this is coming from someone who automates a lot of things!
 
CycloneDaddy said:
The real question is why does my 1200 sq ft 2nd floor have 5 smoke detectors.
Click to expand...

I think its code that you should have at least 1 dual smoke/C0 detector in a common area on each level and 1 smoke alarm in each bedroom. I have a 3 bedroom 2 story house with a finished basement so 3 Smoke/C0 in central spots on all 3 levels then 1 smoke alarm in each bedroom for a total of 6 in the house.

We also have 1 of those plug in standalone C0 detectors AgronAlum linked near our gas dryer as we've had an experience where we found that a gas appliance was emitting too much . C0 years ago we had a gas stove that hours after my wife had baked something that day the Smoke/C0 detector started going off in our home. Had Mid-American come out and they checked the entire house and could not find a leak then asked if we had used the stove today. Told them we had baked something but it was several hours ago. They turned it on (not the stovetop but the actual oven part only) and started checking it and it was outputting a lot of C02 so we got rid of that stove and converted to an electric one. Ever since my wife worries about gas appliances and part of that may have to do with while we were dating her apartment complex burned down from an unknown cause so still has some PTS from that experience I'm sure. She got woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of the sliding glass door shattering and living room on fire and not a single alarm in the building was going off yet despite the fire started in the apartment directly below her.
 
We're 7 years into our new house and have had no issues yet, but will need to be replacing them soon. This thread came at a good time :)
 
All of our rooms are pretty standard Kidde.
Our main hallways I did Next smoke/C02 on each level.
 
CycloneDaddy said:
I know it is code to have 1 in each bedrooom but there are 3 within 8 feet of each other (2 bedrooms & hallway).
Click to expand...
Just asked because when I appraised you has to have one for each bedroom and one in a hallway. Some dumb stuff but what was required for certain loans.
 
My home has the hard wire Kidde alarms. I have disconnected 1 of them from a bedroom as it would go off randomly in the middle of the night. My best guess is that it was dust setting it off as it was above the hvac return and the kid slept with a fan on.
 
Replaced the whole house with these last fall. Hardwired + 10 year battery backup so I don't have to go shuffle 9-volts through everything once a year. I have one combo CO + smoke detector on each floor, otherwise the rest are smoke detectors.
 
CycloneDaddy said:
The real question is why does my 1200 sq ft 2nd floor have 5 smoke detectors.
Click to expand...

4fKCAj.gif
 
  • Like
Reactions: CycloneDaddy
NickTheGreat said:
I'm a huge home automation nerd but made the decision to replace all of my old detectors last year with non-smart ones

I do have a z-wave module to connect to my automation system that I plan to wire inline to the detector in my basement. The intention being to alert me if one of the detectors go off.

I could not find a smart detector that I thought was worth the hassle. And this is coming from someone who automates a lot of things!
Click to expand...
I just bought 6 of these today, by coincidence. I know it is sort of a crap shoot, but I have been looking for a long time.
 
NickTheGreat said:
I'm a huge home automation nerd but made the decision to replace all of my old detectors last year with non-smart ones

I do have a z-wave module to connect to my automation system that I plan to wire inline to the detector in my basement. The intention being to alert me if one of the detectors go off.

I could not find a smart detector that I thought was worth the hassle. And this is coming from someone who automates a lot of things!
Click to expand...
Those are very close to the model I have, practically the same except mine have voice alerts and room settings.

I might just say screw it, clean the one I took down and put it back up there. It hasn't had any alarm prior to this morning. I bought them all new less than a year ago and I think this time it was a humidity thing that took awhile to die down. Most alarms would go off in that situation, I'm probably just overthinking it.
 
I decided against the sealed battery version of the one I linked above. I had not read good things about the 10-year battery life. I put those in in summer of 24 and have not had a dead battery beep . . . yet.

Either my family is at serious risk or I'll get a beep tonight :jimlad:

Either way, I should check into it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Help Support Us

Become a patron
Top Bottom