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"If Nest Protect detects emergency levels of smoke, it will sound an alarm that can’t be hushed, by regulation." https://nest.com/support/article/What-types-of

by raldi 12y ago

"If Nest Protect detects emergency levels of smoke, it will sound an alarm that can’t be hushed, by regulation." https://nest.com/support/article/What-types-of-alarms-can-I-silence https://nest.com/support/article/What-types-of-alarms-can-I-... (Yes, I know the smoke detection was a malfunction, but occasional malfunctions like that are a fact of life. My ire is directed at regulators forbidding users from silencing their own smoke detectors without physically incapacitating them -- what were they thinking!?)

jrockway 12y ago
It can be hushed if you stuff it into a cooler, apparently.
Spooky23 12y ago
They were thinking about protecting human life. For example, people with cheapskate landlords who would be happy to leave a nonfunctional smoke detector that was muted installed rather than spend $20.
- raldi 12y ago
  I'm not saying you should be able to permanently mute them; just for, say, 15 minutes per button press. Also, cheapskate landlords would just take the battery out.
brudgers 12y ago
There's a reason that smoke detectors operate the way they do. That reason is that people die when they don't. The issue I have with the Nest smoke detector is that it is sold as a luxury consumer product. That puts it in the class of "the customer is always right" sales. The Venn diagram of that and things that are designed to save people's lives regardless of their tendency to statistically evaluate the risks and rewards of rare but deadly events inaccurately is disjoint. If Nest did not comply with the regulations, they could not market their product as a smoke alarm.
- raldi 12y ago
  Actually, people die when they incapacitate their smoke detectors because of false alarms that can't be silenced any other way. Citation: http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/fire-safety-equipment/smoke-alarms-in-us-home-fires http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/fire-saf... which says that 60% of people who died in a housefire were in a building that had no operating smoke alarms. A few more quotes: "Surprisingly, the death rate was much higher in fires in which a smoke alarm was present but did not operate than it was in home fires with no smoke alarms at all." "Smoke alarm failures usually result from missing, disconnected, or dead batteries. People are most likely to remove or disconnect batteries because of nuisance activations."
  - cowsandmilk 12y ago
    > people die when they incapacitate their smoke detectors because of false alarms that can't be silenced any other way. Not sure nest would win if it was easier to disable. Have you ever had a smoke alarm that goes off every couple hours? You can't sleep. Doesn't matter if you can turn it off with a wave. And let's say you reach the point where you instinctively wave so it doesn't bother your sleep, now what happens when there's a fire? False alarms are the problem. From the video and reports, it appears the Nest Protect has real problems with this.
  - tomsthumb 12y ago
    Pulled the battery from my kitchen fire alarm after it went off three nights in a row while making dinner. Nothing was smoking or even boiling, much less actually burning. It's an electric stove to boot.
    - takeda 12y ago
      You are contradicting yourself, if the alarm was triggered when making dinner then it must have generated a smoke, how would the detector even know you are making dinner. With the nest, the alarm turned by itself for no reason, you don't cook in bedroom, he even said that he got notification when he was at work. Two different reasons, your situation was that smoke alarm was too sensitive, perhaps you placed it close to the oven, here the alarm fires for no reason, and it is not the kitchen one, but bedroom one where normally you don't have smoke.
engi_nerd 12y ago
Or if you have it installed in your master bedroom, with an en-suite bathroom and a steamy shower. Nothing like having all your smoke alarms go off when you're in the shower! We contacted Nest. Their basic response: "Move the Nest Protect further away from the shower." Or, take the stupid thing off the ceiling and switch back to the previous smoke detector, which would detect smoke but was not fooled by water vapor. Nest had marketed the device as a smoke alarm that you could silence -- because it would have a period where it would warn you that something was wrong before it triggered the alarm, and it would be possible to manually silence it -- but in my direct experience this period never happened. The Protects always went straight from "normal" to "ALARM" without any warning period. Of course the Protect unit in my kitchen never actually detected kitchen smoke, even when I once burned some food quite severely. I also had a negative experience with the Nest thermostat. I'm still not sure if I had it wired wrong -- I don't believe so, because I had previously installed cheap-o Honeywell thermostats that worked flawlessly -- but one late spring night I turned on the air conditioner to lower the temperature a few degrees, and then went to bed. I woke up a few hours later, drenched in sweat. Somehow the unit had commanded "EMER HEAT" on my heat pump instead of air conditioning. My bedroom was 91 degrees Fahrenheit! The target temp was 70F, which the unit was never reaching. But it wasn't smart enough to realize "Hey, my actions are just making the temperature INCREASE, I should stop and flag an error." Nest's response: "that's funny, it shouldn't have done that". I took the things off the wall the next day. I am now very wary of "smart home" technology. I can't imagine the experience that a non-technically inclined user has...
asdfaoeu 12y ago
> (Yes, I know the smoke detection was a malfunction, but occasional malfunctions like that are a fact of life. My ire is directed at regulators forbidding users from silencing their own smoke detectors without physically incapacitating them -- what were they thinking!?) Well for most it just involves pulling the power cord or yanking the battery.
- JshWright 12y ago
  Right, and then it's far less likely to be there when you need it in an actual fire.
Shivetya 12y ago
has anyone found where this regulation is? I have searched a few states and cannot find this restriction. I have found mounting and wiring restrictions but none on silencing.
pimlottc 12y ago
I was curious about this. IANAL (or general contractor) but while it was easy to find lots of regulations about required installation of smoke detectors, I couldn't find any restrictions about silencing them. In particular, I turned out nothing in either California or San Francisco fire code. Of course, Nest is selling to a national market, so I don't doubt that it's required somewhere in the US, but it sure doesn't seem to be that common.

by raldi 12y ago

jrockway 12y ago

It can be hushed if you stuff it into a cooler, apparently.

Spooky23 12y ago

They were thinking about protecting human life. For example, people with cheapskate landlords who would be happy to leave a nonfunctional smoke detector that was muted installed rather than spend $20.

raldi 12y ago
I'm not saying you should be able to permanently mute them; just for, say, 15 minutes per button press. Also, cheapskate landlords would just take the battery out.

brudgers 12y ago

There's a reason that smoke detectors operate the way they do. That reason is that people die when they don't. The issue I have with the Nest smoke detector is that it is sold as a luxury consumer product. That puts it in the class of "the customer is always right" sales. The Venn diagram of that and things that are designed to save people's lives regardless of their tendency to statistically evaluate the risks and rewards of rare but deadly events inaccurately is disjoint. If Nest did not comply with the regulations, they could not market their product as a smoke alarm.

raldi 12y ago
Actually, people die when they incapacitate their smoke detectors because of false alarms that can't be silenced any other way. Citation: http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/fire-safety-equipment/smoke-alarms-in-us-home-fires http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/fire-saf... which says that 60% of people who died in a housefire were in a building that had no operating smoke alarms. A few more quotes: "Surprisingly, the death rate was much higher in fires in which a smoke alarm was present but did not operate than it was in home fires with no smoke alarms at all." "Smoke alarm failures usually result from missing, disconnected, or dead batteries. People are most likely to remove or disconnect batteries because of nuisance activations."
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  > people die when they incapacitate their smoke detectors because of false alarms that can't be silenced any other way. Not sure nest would win if it was easier to disable. Have you ever had a smoke alarm that goes off every couple hours? You can't sleep. Doesn't matter if you can turn it off with a wave. And let's say you reach the point where you instinctively wave so it doesn't bother your sleep, now what happens when there's a fire? False alarms are the problem. From the video and reports, it appears the Nest Protect has real problems with this.
- tomsthumb 12y ago
  Pulled the battery from my kitchen fire alarm after it went off three nights in a row while making dinner. Nothing was smoking or even boiling, much less actually burning. It's an electric stove to boot.
  - takeda 12y ago
    You are contradicting yourself, if the alarm was triggered when making dinner then it must have generated a smoke, how would the detector even know you are making dinner. With the nest, the alarm turned by itself for no reason, you don't cook in bedroom, he even said that he got notification when he was at work. Two different reasons, your situation was that smoke alarm was too sensitive, perhaps you placed it close to the oven, here the alarm fires for no reason, and it is not the kitchen one, but bedroom one where normally you don't have smoke.

engi_nerd 12y ago

Or if you have it installed in your master bedroom, with an en-suite bathroom and a steamy shower. Nothing like having all your smoke alarms go off when you're in the shower! We contacted Nest. Their basic response: "Move the Nest Protect further away from the shower." Or, take the stupid thing off the ceiling and switch back to the previous smoke detector, which would detect smoke but was not fooled by water vapor. Nest had marketed the device as a smoke alarm that you could silence -- because it would have a period where it would warn you that something was wrong before it triggered the alarm, and it would be possible to manually silence it -- but in my direct experience this period never happened. The Protects always went straight from "normal" to "ALARM" without any warning period. Of course the Protect unit in my kitchen never actually detected kitchen smoke, even when I once burned some food quite severely. I also had a negative experience with the Nest thermostat. I'm still not sure if I had it wired wrong -- I don't believe so, because I had previously installed cheap-o Honeywell thermostats that worked flawlessly -- but one late spring night I turned on the air conditioner to lower the temperature a few degrees, and then went to bed. I woke up a few hours later, drenched in sweat. Somehow the unit had commanded "EMER HEAT" on my heat pump instead of air conditioning. My bedroom was 91 degrees Fahrenheit! The target temp was 70F, which the unit was never reaching. But it wasn't smart enough to realize "Hey, my actions are just making the temperature INCREASE, I should stop and flag an error." Nest's response: "that's funny, it shouldn't have done that". I took the things off the wall the next day. I am now very wary of "smart home" technology. I can't imagine the experience that a non-technically inclined user has...

asdfaoeu 12y ago

> (Yes, I know the smoke detection was a malfunction, but occasional malfunctions like that are a fact of life. My ire is directed at regulators forbidding users from silencing their own smoke detectors without physically incapacitating them -- what were they thinking!?) Well for most it just involves pulling the power cord or yanking the battery.

JshWright 12y ago
Right, and then it's far less likely to be there when you need it in an actual fire.

Shivetya 12y ago

has anyone found where this regulation is? I have searched a few states and cannot find this restriction. I have found mounting and wiring restrictions but none on silencing.

pimlottc 12y ago

I was curious about this. IANAL (or general contractor) but while it was easy to find lots of regulations about required installation of smoke detectors, I couldn't find any restrictions about silencing them. In particular, I turned out nothing in either California or San Francisco fire code. Of course, Nest is selling to a national market, so I don't doubt that it's required somewhere in the US, but it sure doesn't seem to be that common.