Carbon monoxide alarms removed from Amazon and eBay after failing safety tests
independent.co.uk
independent.co.uk
Turns out it's completely counterfeit. Worst yet I reported it and nothing happened to it and last I checked it's listed as "Amazon's Choice". They are still selling these.
Amazon seems perfectly fine with selling counterfeit products and it's quite frustrating.
Does paying amazon counterfeit money makes it any less illegal? Asking for a friend.
They've gotten better at it these days, but I think that's more due to the fact that faking SD cards isn't as profitable as it once was.
Amazon seem to take a very hands-off approach to caring about the quality of the items they sell; I'd like to see what their internal slippage budget is.
However, what I have also learned is that there are many Chinese sellers that have also learned how to game the system.
Here's a teardown of some fakes.[3] The fakes are way overloaded - they have the parts for a much lower current device inside. Also, the higher current ones need a heat sink, which the counterfeit ones don't provide.
These things tend to show up in "internet of Things" devices, because they can switch considerable power from a logic level input.
UL's warning page on this.[4]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Relay-Protective-SSR-100DA...
[2] http://www.fotek.com.hk/page1e.htm
[3] http://www.instructables.com/id/The-inner-workings-of-Counte...
[4] https://www.ul.com/newsroom/publicnotices/ul-warns-of-solid-...
Tempting to save quite a bit of money (~$3 vs $25), but you might burn your house down.
Seeing this report, I decided to test it, and have taken a few barbeque coals smouldering and left them near the alarm.
The alarm goes off within about 1 minute, and the screen shows first 25, then "50ppm" of carbon monoxide.
I also tested the behaviour with a low battery, and it does indeed warn you.
Overall, it seems to be working as advertised - I can only suspect that not all of this model of alarm are bad, or perhaps that the british standards have some strict requirements (like perhaps it needs to go off quicker than 1 minute).
For the $2.50, the safety per dollar seems like the best deal around, and it is still way better than not having an alarm.
If anyone else tries this, beware that once the alarm has gone off, it keeps beeping for about an hour, even after you remove the carbon monoxide...
[1] https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/carbon-monoxide-detectors/ar...
The problem is not being able to rely on them, if you've a lucky one which passed your test are you confident it'll still be working in a couple of years?
For $2.50, it seemed worth getting anyway (just incase someone is an idiot and brings the lit barbequeue indoors or something), but wouldn't have been worth it in my eyes for $10.
Amazon has an incredible problem with counterfeits, but also with quality control: they often will sell you items that have been used and returned by customers as new and never used.
You can't even rely on the reviews because sellers routinely game the system and flood their listings with fake or bought 5 star reviews. Oftentimes, when I publish a 1 star review, the seller will reach out and ask me to change my review to 5 star in exchange for another free product of theirs. Many people bite.
I personally quit buying anything at all from Amazon for that reason, instead I find the item locally and price match if the store allows. Even if you report it, the underpaid customer service agent only seems to have one incentive: number of cases handled by hour. Don't expect much when reporting counterfeit or unsafe products, they'll say amazon cares, thank you, it will be forwarded to whoever. It might as well go to /dev/null because nothing ever happens.
It eludes me how amazon (the retailer) plans on staying in business in the long term while behaving this way.
To be honest, I'm not sure whether there's even any point having expiration dates on modern photoelectric detectors, except as a way to sell more smoke alarms.
[1] https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/carbon-monoxide-detectors
[2] https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/carbon-monoxide-detectors/un...
[1] https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/carbon-monoxide-detectors/ar...
"Compared with Best Buy carbon monoxide detectors, the Don't Buy alarms that we've named and shamed on this page just can’t be relied upon to detect the gas and sound the alarm. In our tests, the Don’t Buys failed to detect carbon monoxide in more than one-in-three of our tests. This adds up to 26 failures out of 72 tests. By contrast, the Best Buys passed all 312 of our carbon monoxide gas tests.
The potentially deadly CO alarms all claim to have passed the relevant EU safety standard, EN 50291. But repeated failures in our lab tests – which mirror those of the safety standard – lead us to doubt that they actually did. And we’re as concerned about several lookalike models as we are about the three models that failed our tests.
To find out which models are Don't Buys, as well as our Best Buy carbon monoxide detectors, sign up for a £1 trial to Which?"
https://familylivingtoday.com/best-carbon-monoxide-detectors...
or
https://www.consumerreports.org/products/carbon-monoxide-det...
(but you've got to pay for that one)
Or, simple rule of thumb, stick with one of the major brands like Kidde or First Alert (other reputable brands like Nest should be safe too). Or better, use more than one major brand/model just in case there's a design flaw in one of them.
If you don't want to pay for Consumer Reports: their top rated standalone detector is the First Alert CO615 ($30)
I bought mine from Home Depot, who I hope has enough control over the supply chain from the manufacturer that they are legit.
But counterfeit products is another reason to go with multiple brands/models, you're less likely to receive perfect counterfeit replicas of each type.
As you can see in this CO detector case, when there’s something more serious than whether it gets your whites whiter than white, they share it with the press and make a campaign around it.