9 ms·

Whatever happened to IoT smoke alarms?

19 points by edent 6y ago

lights0123 6y ago
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/04/when-to-replace-an-older-smoke-alarm/index.htm https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/04/when-to-rep... > The life expectancy of smoke alarms is generally 10 years, after which point their sensors can begin to lose sensitivity. Every website says they should be replaced every 7-10 years anyways, regardless of their smart-ness.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  They have a very small amount of radioactive material (~1.0 microcurie of the radioactive element americium-241) that is used as part of the detector, and it does what you’d expect it to do: it decays. Consumer Reports can and should do better being a bit more verbose for correctness.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Crosseye_Jack 6y ago
    A lot of them these days are photoelectric. They have a “light sealed” chamber (basically vented in such a way that ambient light doesn’t have a path into the chamber but “smoke” does (well smoke, dust and other airborne particulate that is carried in the air)). Instead in the chamber you have a light source and detector. Light is emitted from the source, reflects of the side of the detector and onto the detector. (Actually, thinking about it, I’m sure that they can also work “the other way round”, so instead of particulate blocking the light, lowering the detection levels, they can configured so the light source isn’t pointing at the detector and use the reflectivity of “smoke” to relect light onto the detector. But you get the idea. It’s been far too long since I’ve taken one apart, time to order another for fun. Anyways back to the post) Dedicated ICs for this purpose can detect the slight lowering of light detected over time by the receiver as dust accumulates instead the chamber and adjust its trigger levels accordingly. Removes the need for need for the scary radiation source warning label, removes the issue with the radiation source decaying over time and I’m sure comes with that lovely side effect of lowering the BOM cost. Even though LEDs also decay, as it’s duty cycle is no where need 100% and is completely controlled by the IC I would expect the components in a photoelectric smoke detector to last much much longer than 10, but mine still came with (iirc) a 10 year expiry date on them. I would say because it’s a safety device, an abundance of caution is applied so other things ageing out have to be considered too (like the power supply caps) Big Clive has taken these apart many a time. If this one doesn’t cover the operation of them, just search for smoke alarm on his channel and I’m sure it won’t take long before find one where he “tears down” the smoke detection chamber of an photoelectric version. https://youtu.be/uzKAZCKjpU8 https://youtu.be/uzKAZCKjpU8 No idea off the top of my head on how heat detectors (best near your kitchen so your toast doesn’t trigger them) work as personally I’ve never taken one of them apart (yet).
dustinmoris 6y ago
> Could I build my own out of a Pi and some scavenged components? Sure – but I can’t be bothered More importantly, no insurance company will cover costs from a fire if they find out that you had a self built smoke detector which didn't pass standard quality checks. I think in the UK landlords must do a yearly smoke detector check as part of home owner regulation so a self built device might have failed at that point as well.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  A workaround could be a completely separate device placed next to a standard, certified smoke alarm that just listens for the alarm. That'll cover the "remote alerts" part at least.
  - dementik 6y ago
    That was my solution as well. I have required smoke detectors connected to powerline 1 per 60m2 or so and then have multiple Heiman zigbee detectors, connected to Home Assistant.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  > More importantly, no insurance company will cover costs from a fire if they find out that you had a self built smoke detector which didn't pass standard quality checks. Is this a thing? Where? Are there similar things for burglar alarms where your insurance doesn’t pay or has a more expensive premium because of lacking alarm systems? Making a fire alarm smart should never affect the normal functionality. They should of course always be certified the same way. One thing that could be worse is battery time, especially for high power wireless like 802.11, but a workaround for that could be to have two separate batteries and let it fail to a dumb alarm when the IoT battery is dead.
yetihehe 6y ago
Does it have to be wifi? My company makes GSM smoke detectors, no wifi required (and sim card with connection included in price). https://ferguson-digital.eu/produkt/gsm-smoke-detector-fs2sd-gsm/?lang=en https://ferguson-digital.eu/produkt/gsm-smoke-detector-fs2sd...
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Will this work in the US with a US SIM card?
  - yetihehe 6y ago
    We didn't test it yet, but probably not. In UK (where the author of article resides) yes. Sim card is soldered in.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Please consider the US market for future iterations (and a SIM socket if it’s a reasonable price on the BOM). I believe Twilio even offers a global SIM with reasonable IoT data rate pricing.
      - yetihehe 6y ago
        It was more about space, it's small module inserted into that big detector. We would probably just make different module for US. Worldwide module is in planning stage after nb-iot takes off more widely.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  I’ve read about all sorts of alarms (I don’t think smoke, but fire and other emergency alarms) running on things like ISDN before the term IoT ever existed
  - yetihehe 6y ago
    And I've worked on telemetry devices which had modem and could phone alarms and data to control room over landlines before there was any ISDN available. This was for city heating control. My company was upgrading this to mobile connectivity. Whole system earned it's worth after one pipe break, because operator could select area on map, turn off all flow to different devices with several clicks and they didn't have to use complicated freezing devices to fix pipe.
brudgers 6y ago
They were and are a really fucking dumb idea. A smoke detector has exactly one function. Make really irritating noise whenever something is wrong. And exactly two definitions of wrong: smoke and low power. The incorporation of convenience features entirely defeated the purpose of smoke detectors. It made them less likely to save lives. There are still IOT smoke detectors in the commercial space for air ducts. And instead of noise, they signal a monitored central station in facilities in working relationships with the local fire service. Hospitals for example. That's not your house. The limited life expectancy of smoke detectors created an attractive recurring purchase model for Nest. It over-ruled life safety effectiveness. I suspect, but have no evidence beyond circumstantial, that lawyers, regulators, and insurers all said things that made financial accountants remodel projections.
- nojokes 6y ago
  I like the second kind of wrong. My smoke sensors start to make random short bleeps. I have about 10 of them in our house. Usually it will take at least annoying 15 minutes to locate the culprit.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Don't they have a LED to indicate low power? I don't know much about smoke detectors, but I'd imagine they'd have a LED on at all times to indicate that they're working.
    - nojokes 6y ago
      No, mine just blink time to time.
- seized 6y ago
  I disagree. My dumb detectors started false positives after just a few years. Their mute/silence buttons didn't work so burnt toast meant two minutes of screeching. No options for remote alerts (without external smart hardware). Batteries would only fail at night even after a few years. Or dust? Or carbon monoxide? Never knew, because the beeps were a terrible form of communication. Smoke detectors SHOULD have some safe, reliable smart technology. All my Protects have outlasted the simple Kiddes.
yftsui 6y ago
Zigbee smoke alarms cost is okay, but still a few bucks more and it add up if you have 10 of them. I just enable Alexa to listen for smoke alarms and send me a notification when I am away.
- edent 6y ago
  Do you know of any Zigbee alarms for sale in the UK? I couldn't find any when I looked.
seized 6y ago
Nest Protects are still around and are amazing. So much better than the garbage Kiddes I had before (a working mute/silence button? What a concept!). The self tests and green Ok light at night are comfort boosters. And the voice announcement of the alarm level and location are great features.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  This is what I came here to post. So easy, so much function, even with rechargeable batteries.
- sixothree 6y ago
  Do they come with other sensors other than smoke? I have a hard time believing google would not take the opportunity to monitor my movements.
  - WolfRazu 6y ago
    They have a motion sensor you can use for triggering the light and activating cameras etc.
    - sixothree 6y ago
      Yup, there it is. I knew they couldn't keep they paws off of personal life.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    There is a microphone: https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9250972?hl=en https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9250972?hl=en
  - edent 6y ago
    They also have Carbon Monoxide sensors.
- xyyzy 6y ago
  The battery life of the Nest Protect is also incredible! I have them for 3 years already without changing the batteries.
acidburnNSA 6y ago
I got a zwave product that you mount next to your normal smoke detector. It listens for the alarm. When it hears it, it sends a zwave notification. Works great! I also have laser particulate sensors hooked to esp8266s for dramatically higher resolution smoke/air quality detection. They go over Mqtt to home assistant for graphing, automations, etc.
aequitas 6y ago
433MHz coupled wireless smoke detectors are about as cheap as ones without. And their signal can be intercepted by a cheap Rflink device: http://www.rflink.nl/blog2/devlist http://www.rflink.nl/blog2/devlist Granted they are not as fancy as a Nest, but you can buy 5 of these for the price of 1 Nest. And the Nest's aren't flawless either. I've had to reconnect 2 of the 3 Nest's at my parent house multiple times now and also a Google account is now required.
hondadriver 6y ago
https://shelly.cloud/products/shelly-smoke-smart-home-automation-sensor/ https://shelly.cloud/products/shelly-smoke-smart-home-automa... Soon...
tssva 6y ago
The only thing I would be looking for out of a smart smoke detector is remote notification and I already achieve this using my Wyze cameras. They are set to listen for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. They will notify me if detected. The notification also triggers other actions such as all the lights in the house being turned on.
Johnwbh 6y ago
Given how many stories there are of IOT devices being hijacked for bitcoin mining or hacked in other ways I am extremely grateful that my smoke alarms are dumb as bricks.
FounderBurr 6y ago
Just have something In the room listen for the horrific screeching of a fire alarm. Then have it send you an sms or whatever. No need to cal it a “fire” anything and no regulatory hurdles to overcome.
bokohut 6y ago
As technology propagates into everything one would be wise to comprehend the management of such devices that are connected regardless of the function. Significant home automation adoption is coming and some have decades of experience in building those changes. Where there is smoke usually fire leads.

19 points by edent 6y ago

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/04/when-to-replace-an-older-smoke-alarm/index.htm https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/04/when-to-rep... > The life expectancy of smoke alarms is generally 10 years, after which point their sensors can begin to lose sensitivity. Every website says they should be replaced every 7-10 years anyways, regardless of their smart-ness.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
They have a very small amount of radioactive material (~1.0 microcurie of the radioactive element americium-241) that is used as part of the detector, and it does what you’d expect it to do: it decays. Consumer Reports can and should do better being a bit more verbose for correctness.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Crosseye_Jack 6y ago
  A lot of them these days are photoelectric. They have a “light sealed” chamber (basically vented in such a way that ambient light doesn’t have a path into the chamber but “smoke” does (well smoke, dust and other airborne particulate that is carried in the air)). Instead in the chamber you have a light source and detector. Light is emitted from the source, reflects of the side of the detector and onto the detector. (Actually, thinking about it, I’m sure that they can also work “the other way round”, so instead of particulate blocking the light, lowering the detection levels, they can configured so the light source isn’t pointing at the detector and use the reflectivity of “smoke” to relect light onto the detector. But you get the idea. It’s been far too long since I’ve taken one apart, time to order another for fun. Anyways back to the post) Dedicated ICs for this purpose can detect the slight lowering of light detected over time by the receiver as dust accumulates instead the chamber and adjust its trigger levels accordingly. Removes the need for need for the scary radiation source warning label, removes the issue with the radiation source decaying over time and I’m sure comes with that lovely side effect of lowering the BOM cost. Even though LEDs also decay, as it’s duty cycle is no where need 100% and is completely controlled by the IC I would expect the components in a photoelectric smoke detector to last much much longer than 10, but mine still came with (iirc) a 10 year expiry date on them. I would say because it’s a safety device, an abundance of caution is applied so other things ageing out have to be considered too (like the power supply caps) Big Clive has taken these apart many a time. If this one doesn’t cover the operation of them, just search for smoke alarm on his channel and I’m sure it won’t take long before find one where he “tears down” the smoke detection chamber of an photoelectric version. https://youtu.be/uzKAZCKjpU8 https://youtu.be/uzKAZCKjpU8 No idea off the top of my head on how heat detectors (best near your kitchen so your toast doesn’t trigger them) work as personally I’ve never taken one of them apart (yet).

dustinmoris 6y ago

> Could I build my own out of a Pi and some scavenged components? Sure – but I can’t be bothered More importantly, no insurance company will cover costs from a fire if they find out that you had a self built smoke detector which didn't pass standard quality checks. I think in the UK landlords must do a yearly smoke detector check as part of home owner regulation so a self built device might have failed at that point as well.

Nextgrid 6y ago
A workaround could be a completely separate device placed next to a standard, certified smoke alarm that just listens for the alarm. That'll cover the "remote alerts" part at least.
- dementik 6y ago
  That was my solution as well. I have required smoke detectors connected to powerline 1 per 60m2 or so and then have multiple Heiman zigbee detectors, connected to Home Assistant.
alkonaut 6y ago
> More importantly, no insurance company will cover costs from a fire if they find out that you had a self built smoke detector which didn't pass standard quality checks. Is this a thing? Where? Are there similar things for burglar alarms where your insurance doesn’t pay or has a more expensive premium because of lacking alarm systems? Making a fire alarm smart should never affect the normal functionality. They should of course always be certified the same way. One thing that could be worse is battery time, especially for high power wireless like 802.11, but a workaround for that could be to have two separate batteries and let it fail to a dumb alarm when the IoT battery is dead.

yetihehe 6y ago

Does it have to be wifi? My company makes GSM smoke detectors, no wifi required (and sim card with connection included in price). https://ferguson-digital.eu/produkt/gsm-smoke-detector-fs2sd-gsm/?lang=en https://ferguson-digital.eu/produkt/gsm-smoke-detector-fs2sd...

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Will this work in the US with a US SIM card?
- yetihehe 6y ago
  We didn't test it yet, but probably not. In UK (where the author of article resides) yes. Sim card is soldered in.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Please consider the US market for future iterations (and a SIM socket if it’s a reasonable price on the BOM). I believe Twilio even offers a global SIM with reasonable IoT data rate pricing.
    - yetihehe 6y ago
      It was more about space, it's small module inserted into that big detector. We would probably just make different module for US. Worldwide module is in planning stage after nb-iot takes off more widely.
the_only_law 6y ago
I’ve read about all sorts of alarms (I don’t think smoke, but fire and other emergency alarms) running on things like ISDN before the term IoT ever existed
- yetihehe 6y ago
  And I've worked on telemetry devices which had modem and could phone alarms and data to control room over landlines before there was any ISDN available. This was for city heating control. My company was upgrading this to mobile connectivity. Whole system earned it's worth after one pipe break, because operator could select area on map, turn off all flow to different devices with several clicks and they didn't have to use complicated freezing devices to fix pipe.

brudgers 6y ago

They were and are a really fucking dumb idea. A smoke detector has exactly one function. Make really irritating noise whenever something is wrong. And exactly two definitions of wrong: smoke and low power. The incorporation of convenience features entirely defeated the purpose of smoke detectors. It made them less likely to save lives. There are still IOT smoke detectors in the commercial space for air ducts. And instead of noise, they signal a monitored central station in facilities in working relationships with the local fire service. Hospitals for example. That's not your house. The limited life expectancy of smoke detectors created an attractive recurring purchase model for Nest. It over-ruled life safety effectiveness. I suspect, but have no evidence beyond circumstantial, that lawyers, regulators, and insurers all said things that made financial accountants remodel projections.

nojokes 6y ago
I like the second kind of wrong. My smoke sensors start to make random short bleeps. I have about 10 of them in our house. Usually it will take at least annoying 15 minutes to locate the culprit.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Don't they have a LED to indicate low power? I don't know much about smoke detectors, but I'd imagine they'd have a LED on at all times to indicate that they're working.
  - nojokes 6y ago
    No, mine just blink time to time.
seized 6y ago
I disagree. My dumb detectors started false positives after just a few years. Their mute/silence buttons didn't work so burnt toast meant two minutes of screeching. No options for remote alerts (without external smart hardware). Batteries would only fail at night even after a few years. Or dust? Or carbon monoxide? Never knew, because the beeps were a terrible form of communication. Smoke detectors SHOULD have some safe, reliable smart technology. All my Protects have outlasted the simple Kiddes.

yftsui 6y ago

Zigbee smoke alarms cost is okay, but still a few bucks more and it add up if you have 10 of them. I just enable Alexa to listen for smoke alarms and send me a notification when I am away.

edent 6y ago
Do you know of any Zigbee alarms for sale in the UK? I couldn't find any when I looked.

seized 6y ago

Nest Protects are still around and are amazing. So much better than the garbage Kiddes I had before (a working mute/silence button? What a concept!). The self tests and green Ok light at night are comfort boosters. And the voice announcement of the alarm level and location are great features.

LatteLazy 6y ago
This is what I came here to post. So easy, so much function, even with rechargeable batteries.
sixothree 6y ago
Do they come with other sensors other than smoke? I have a hard time believing google would not take the opportunity to monitor my movements.
- WolfRazu 6y ago
  They have a motion sensor you can use for triggering the light and activating cameras etc.
  - sixothree 6y ago
    Yup, there it is. I knew they couldn't keep they paws off of personal life.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  There is a microphone: https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9250972?hl=en https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9250972?hl=en
- edent 6y ago
  They also have Carbon Monoxide sensors.
xyyzy 6y ago
The battery life of the Nest Protect is also incredible! I have them for 3 years already without changing the batteries.

acidburnNSA 6y ago

I got a zwave product that you mount next to your normal smoke detector. It listens for the alarm. When it hears it, it sends a zwave notification. Works great! I also have laser particulate sensors hooked to esp8266s for dramatically higher resolution smoke/air quality detection. They go over Mqtt to home assistant for graphing, automations, etc.

aequitas 6y ago

433MHz coupled wireless smoke detectors are about as cheap as ones without. And their signal can be intercepted by a cheap Rflink device: http://www.rflink.nl/blog2/devlist http://www.rflink.nl/blog2/devlist Granted they are not as fancy as a Nest, but you can buy 5 of these for the price of 1 Nest. And the Nest's aren't flawless either. I've had to reconnect 2 of the 3 Nest's at my parent house multiple times now and also a Google account is now required.

hondadriver 6y ago

https://shelly.cloud/products/shelly-smoke-smart-home-automation-sensor/ https://shelly.cloud/products/shelly-smoke-smart-home-automa... Soon...

tssva 6y ago

The only thing I would be looking for out of a smart smoke detector is remote notification and I already achieve this using my Wyze cameras. They are set to listen for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. They will notify me if detected. The notification also triggers other actions such as all the lights in the house being turned on.

Johnwbh 6y ago

Given how many stories there are of IOT devices being hijacked for bitcoin mining or hacked in other ways I am extremely grateful that my smoke alarms are dumb as bricks.

FounderBurr 6y ago

Just have something In the room listen for the horrific screeching of a fire alarm. Then have it send you an sms or whatever. No need to cal it a “fire” anything and no regulatory hurdles to overcome.

bokohut 6y ago

As technology propagates into everything one would be wise to comprehend the management of such devices that are connected regardless of the function. Significant home automation adoption is coming and some have decades of experience in building those changes. Where there is smoke usually fire leads.