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It's an intriguing, albeit risky move. Existing smoke detectors are pretty ugly with bad UI. There is little to no competition for the 'high end' retail marke
by pyoung 13y ago
It's an intriguing, albeit risky move. Existing smoke detectors are pretty ugly with bad UI. There is little to no competition for the 'high end' retail market. With that said, current smoke detectors can be had for $10-20 bucks, and my guess is Nest will charge significantly more than that. Of course they can add a number of extra sensors/functionality to justify the costs. A CO sensor would be a good addition, maybe motion sensor (for security), temperature sensors (to provide more granular feedback to the thermostat), and maybe some other sensors to monitor indoor air quality (VOC's, radon). I am sure there are a few other things that can be thrown into the device to make it more useful (wifi repeater?).
All things considered, this is a pretty genius move. In the push to create 'smart homes' most of the attention has been on lighting, kitchen appliances, and entertainment systems. But one thing that has always bugged me was how do you get a refrigerator at the back of the house to communicate seamlessly with the wireless router in the front if the signal doesn't reach that far. I was thinking that mesh networking would play a big part, but even in an appliance saturated home, there could still be some dead spots. Well, smart smoke detectors might solve that, as they are in almost every room in the house! One issue I can forsee is that not all homes have hard-wired smoke detectors (which means power would be an issue, thus limiting what they can do with it).
EDIT: Seems like everyone is focusing on the UI comment. While I think that that is still an issue, I think the more exciting possibility is that a 'smart detector' could also provide nodes for a mesh network (or something similar), essentially providing a communication layer for appliances/devices in the home. If they go this route and they succeed, they could put themselves in a really good position competitively, as they would 'own' the networking layer.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago>> "bad UI" What bad UI? They usually have either 1 or 2 buttons. They always have a test button and sometimes have a secondary button to disable the alarm (e.g. if you accidentally trigger it). They're all basically identical and people have been used to them that way for a long time. I'm not saying there isn't a better way to do it (I'm no UI expert) but does this current UI really need improved?
- H3g3m0n 13y agoThe buttons are on the fucking ceiling and your 'stylus' is a broom.
- tptacek 13y agoWhat UI? You plug them in and, you hope, never think about them again except to change the batteries once every couple years. Why would I want a better relationship with my smoke detector? It's there to detect something that virtually never happens.
- cstejerean 13y agoThat's if things go well. But when they don't, smoke detectors are incredibly frustrating. They'll beep randomly and you won't know which one is doing it. They'll start blinking red and you won't know why. Or they'll go off in the middle of the night for no good reason. Maybe I just need higher quality smoke detectors. I have 2 features that I'd love to see in a smoke detector: 1) notify me when the battery level is low so I don't have to think about it 2) allow me to snooze the smoke detector for 15 / 30 minutes if I end up smoking up the kitchen
- halostatue 13y agoI have a smoke detector that goes off every time I'm cooking anything that smokes slightly…or that produces a significant amount of steam. This means that I have to step away from the stove to silence the damned thing, and that increases the very real risk of a fire because I'm in the middle of actually cooking something that could burn if I'm not actively watching it. I want a better relationship with my smoke detector because I can't trust it to tell me when something really has gone wrong.
- sliverstorm 13y agoHmm... Can't tell if Poe's Law...? Existing smoke detectors are pretty ugly with bad UI. Existing smoke detectors are also exceedingly simple, which is a great thing for lifesaving safety devices. Complexity is the enemy of reliability, and reliability is the primary requirement of safety devices.
- pyoung 13y agoWell, as an anecdote to why simplicity (at least in it's current form) is bad... All but one of my smoke detectors in my apartment are unplugged because they kept going off when I was cooking (would happen at least once a week). I was more likely to die or get injured from climbing onto a wobbly stool to turn off the 4 overly sensitive smoke detectors than I ever was in a fire. I am getting the feeling that this thread is split into two types of people, those who get a lot of false positives from their detectors and those who don't.
- jes 13y agoI was a firefighter for seven years, many years ago. One winter evening, we were dispatched to a chimney fire. After we extinguished it (with the homeowner's hose and a chimney nozzle) I did a walk through of the house and attic to check for extension. I found his smoke detectors hanging open, with the batteries removed. When I asked the homeowner if he wanted some new batteries for them (we kept free batteries on the engine), he happily took them. When I asked him how long his smoke detectors had been without batteries, he quickly answered: "Since Christmas morning." I have no doubt as to where the new batteries went...