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We had a fire alarm going off due to low battery once. We searched the house for 3 hours trying to find it. Gave up, slept through the beeping. Next day, enrag

by tfha 9y ago

We had a fire alarm going off due to low battery once. We searched the house for 3 hours trying to find it. Gave up, slept through the beeping. Next day, enraged, we tried again. Eventually we found it in the bathroom trash can.

lostlogin 9y ago
Just did this yesterday, and eventually found it was the neighbours one that was flat. It’s the 3rd time I’ve knocked on a neighbours door (different people each time) to ask them to take a battery out an alarm. I’d consider it a feature if they combusted after alarming for a day.
- droidist2 9y ago
  It's amazing that people can just tolerate or not be aware of things like this.
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    My nemesis was one of those round stick-on LCD clocks that used to be popular. The designer apparently thought that emitting a single beep every five minutes or so would be an awesome low battery indicator. I didn't know what kind of thing was making the beep, naturally, which was unhelpful. It took about a month of me slowly going mad before I finally found the thing at the back of a desk drawer.
- _nalply 9y ago
  I am Deaf. In the night you would need to break into my flat, too, because the flash indicating the door bell is in the living room, not the bed room. Nobody and nothing disturbs my sacred nightly sleep.
bshep 9y ago
My house has 6 fire alarms, when they beep there is NO way to tell which one it is making the noise 2/2 the combination of short beep and irregular beeping interval. My solution is to just change all the batteries at once so i dont have to guess (and if you guess wrong you then you wont sleep tomorrow because of the beeping) I wish there was some visual indicator to tell which one was faulty.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  I believe they all beep because they want you to replace all the batteries. I had this happen a few months ago except it wasn't a low battery alarm. It kept yelling "FIRE FIRE" but then turning off. Of course FirstAlert apparently doesn't indicate which alarm is causing it. They say the initiating one flashes a different pattern but I didn't find one. Ended up, after getting no sleep at all, replacing all 9 of them with nests. At least then if one fails I'll know which one.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    This who thread had me feeling twitchy. How did any of these product designs make it to market?
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      They weren't (probably still aren't) regulated enough. Manufacturers can get away with it because even if they screw up, an angry customer doesn't really affect their sales in any meaningful way.
  - gasbag 9y ago
    Aren't Nest Protect alarms also linked? This harrowing video leads me to believe they are. It's a couple years old at this point though. (Turn your sound down, video is a poor soul trying to deactivate them.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY
- lb1lf 9y ago
  My smoke detectors made a boast on the packaging they featured a fool-proof low battery indication, without going into any details. I bought half a dozen of them to install in our new house years ago, thinking the nightly find-the-beeping-^+=¥€ games were finally a thing of the past. When one started beeping, I did the rounds, figuring I'd be back in bed in minutes. Well, I wasn't. Turned out the fool-proof indication was to have the normally green LED flash red instead. Did I mention that I am colour blind?

by tfha 9y ago

lostlogin 9y ago

Just did this yesterday, and eventually found it was the neighbours one that was flat. It’s the 3rd time I’ve knocked on a neighbours door (different people each time) to ask them to take a battery out an alarm. I’d consider it a feature if they combusted after alarming for a day.

droidist2 9y ago
It's amazing that people can just tolerate or not be aware of things like this.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  My nemesis was one of those round stick-on LCD clocks that used to be popular. The designer apparently thought that emitting a single beep every five minutes or so would be an awesome low battery indicator. I didn't know what kind of thing was making the beep, naturally, which was unhelpful. It took about a month of me slowly going mad before I finally found the thing at the back of a desk drawer.
_nalply 9y ago
I am Deaf. In the night you would need to break into my flat, too, because the flash indicating the door bell is in the living room, not the bed room. Nobody and nothing disturbs my sacred nightly sleep.

bshep 9y ago

My house has 6 fire alarms, when they beep there is NO way to tell which one it is making the noise 2/2 the combination of short beep and irregular beeping interval. My solution is to just change all the batteries at once so i dont have to guess (and if you guess wrong you then you wont sleep tomorrow because of the beeping) I wish there was some visual indicator to tell which one was faulty.

dawnerd 9y ago
I believe they all beep because they want you to replace all the batteries. I had this happen a few months ago except it wasn't a low battery alarm. It kept yelling "FIRE FIRE" but then turning off. Of course FirstAlert apparently doesn't indicate which alarm is causing it. They say the initiating one flashes a different pattern but I didn't find one. Ended up, after getting no sleep at all, replacing all 9 of them with nests. At least then if one fails I'll know which one.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  This who thread had me feeling twitchy. How did any of these product designs make it to market?
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    They weren't (probably still aren't) regulated enough. Manufacturers can get away with it because even if they screw up, an angry customer doesn't really affect their sales in any meaningful way.
- gasbag 9y ago
  Aren't Nest Protect alarms also linked? This harrowing video leads me to believe they are. It's a couple years old at this point though. (Turn your sound down, video is a poor soul trying to deactivate them.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY
lb1lf 9y ago
My smoke detectors made a boast on the packaging they featured a fool-proof low battery indication, without going into any details. I bought half a dozen of them to install in our new house years ago, thinking the nightly find-the-beeping-^+=¥€ games were finally a thing of the past. When one started beeping, I did the rounds, figuring I'd be back in bed in minutes. Well, I wasn't. Turned out the fool-proof indication was to have the normally green LED flash red instead. Did I mention that I am colour blind?