Meet the Nest Protect smoke and CO alarm | Hacker News Reader

Meet the Nest Protect smoke and CO alarm

nest.com

> I lay in bed, sleepless as usual, watching the smoke alarm blink. It blinked and blinked and I realized I had no idea what that meant.

Whereas this new device glows green, or sometimes yellow. Or other colours. What does that mean? I'll have to check the manual anyway, or wait for the 'human voice' to explain.

The beauty of smoke detectors is that they are a minimal set of electronics required to perform the task. This minimises chances of failure, since the circuitry is sufficiently simple that it can be understood. Perhaps it can even be formally proven? Not sure if that has been done for any end-user device.

Once you start building an ARM computer, OS, wifi, SMS etc into such a device the complexity and failure conditions balloon.

Edit: this device _might_ have an isolated, decoupled sensor unit but it still has to interact with the more complex upper-level functions in order to signal an alarm.

That's why there are two systems, one for all the fancy stuff and the other handles the regular smoke detector stuff.

"Perhaps it can even be formally proven?"

That is the whole purpose of standards organizations and testing organizations. UL has been in this business for a long time: http://www.ul.com

"wait for the 'human voice' to explain" is an orders of magnitude better solution than the current one, which basically amounts to 'let's hope that I guessed correctly what it means'.

I bought a Nest thermostat last year and in general have been pretty happy with it. We have 2 HVAC units in our house (upstairs/downstairs), but I've only only bought one for the downstairs primarily b/c of the up front cost. This problem seems to be exacerbated with a smoke alarm where most (or at least a lot of?) people will require multiple smoke alarms. My two-story house should have 3 or 4 detectors to cover all the living/sleeping areas, but even just one detector is enough of an investment to think twice before plunking down $130 per unit vs several of the $7.50 Kidde linked by jeanjq (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6514777). With the thermostat there's at least potential cost savings over time, but that doesn't exist with a smoke detector. Granted, the benefit of potentially saving your life in the event of a fire is priceless, but I think that convincing folks of the value here is going to be harder than with the thermostat.

Also, sensors in any smoke detector "expire" after some length of time (8-10 yrs - http://www.usfa.fema.gov/citizens/home_fire_prev/alarms/), so this is a semi-recurring cost. Also discussed in that article is the type of detection technology. This is using a photo-electric sensor vs a more traditional ionization sensor. Both have their benefits/tradeoffs, the ideal scenario seems to be to include both (slow smoldering fires vs hot and fast). (I've been researching these a bit lately for our house, would happily defer to an actual expert in the field though).

I love (and am tempted by) the technology and polish/ease of use that they've done here, but the cost seems to be more significant when compared to the current alternatives.

My prediction for Nest's next product: a home security system.

If your home is already equipped with Nest thermostats and smoke alarms, all their motion sensors are commandeered by the central unit. No new wiring necessary.

Edit: Come to think of it, there's probably no need for a central unit, either.

I'd buy it.

It would be great if your security system could detect an intruder, then make the house uncomfortably warm, thereby encouraging the intruder to leave.

Sounds good, but most of the time a burglary is over with in a few minutes. Not quite enough time to get the house warm. Now a high pitched whine with strobing lights and cutting out regular lights might work, although it could be a safety thing that would get you sued.

How about playing a recording of some old farmer's voice saying get out of here, with the sound of a shotgun getting cocked, etc. Or, for an outside perimeter alarm, turn on the lawn sprinklers.

Wouldn't be that hard, come to think of it. Perhaps add a few new detectors. Could use the fire alarms as intruder alarms, and then you'd just need to connect to authorities/central service and you're golden.

It seems odd that they aren't leveraging an additional temperature reading. Some detectors have a heat alarm (not this one). So perhaps a firmware update will bring this. We'll have to wait for the ifixit teardown.

Also, does anyone know how successful WiFi jammers are at negating current systems like this?

I wonder what battery life is like on this? A typical smoke alarm battery can last years but this appears to have a lot of functions and WiFi and a light.

BTW Why do smoke alarm batteries die at night? Because temperature drops and a weak battery's voltage output drops with temperature.

So in theory during a fire they should heat up and start working again! Phew...

http://support.nest.com/article/What-is-the-difference-betwe...

Looks like a couple of years with 6 AA batteries.

"Multiple years" on 6xAA (or there's a wired version with 3xAA as back up) according to http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/8/4790896/nest-protect-smoke...

In the Wired article[1], there is a graphic that states battery life is seven years, and the batteries can be replaced for $10-$15 off the shelf.

[1] http://www.wired.com/business/2013/10/nest-smoke-detector/al...

According to the site - for the battery-powered version:

"6 AA Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries Long-life batteries designed for multi-year operation"

and for the wired version:

"3 AA Energizer Ultimate Lithium backup batteries Long-life backup batteries designed for multi-year operation"

I suppose it depends how much you use its features like lighting-up your hallway, but that's more-than reasonable in my opinion.

I really wished they had innovated in that sense

For example with a wireless energy transmitter (it doesn't need to be too powerful).

Or "solar powered" with a good set of (rechargeable) batteries.

Although battery life is certainly important for a smoke/CO detector, as many people will never change the batteries, around here the fire departments recommend putting in fresh batteries every time you change the clocks for daylight savings time.

Maybe they are in league with battery manufacturers, but I feel safer, and have plenty of extra mostly-charged batteries for remotes and video game controllers!

If you have any doubt that is a desperately-needed product right now, go read the Amazon reviews for literally any other smoke detector on the market.

Frustratingly, this news arrives just weeks too late for us.

What is wrong with the $7.50 Kidde?

http://www.amazon.com/Kidde-Sentry-Battery-Operated-Ionizati...

Reviews seem good.

The Nest is a photoelectric smoke sensor. The Kidde is an ionization sensor.

"Kidde strongly recommends that both ionization and photoelectric smoke alarms be installed to help insure maximum detection of the various types of fires that can occur within the home."

More info: http://consumerist.com/2010/08/25/fire-chief-most-smoke-alar...

Interesting. It's sad, then, that Nest does not emphasise that fact.

We have this exact brand in our apartment. They (like almost all ionization-based smoke detectors) go off at the drop of a hat. And they're ear-splittingly loud. The kill switch is hard to press, and needs to be pressed every few minutes if you're, say, burning incense. And one day, when the battery gets low, they'll start chirping in the middle of the night, leading to a game of "Which one is it?!" as they somehow manage to make noise frequently enough to prevent sleep but infrequently enough to thwart identification of the dying one.

(Smoke detectors' low battery alerts always go off at night because battery output sags when the temperature goes down.)

A smoke alarm being very loud and very sensitive is a feature to me, not a bug - I'd rather be annoyed from time to time than die of smoke inhalation in my sleep. As for 'hunt the low battery' - how many smoke alarms do you need in one area?

False dichotomy. With an extra ten cents' worth of technology, the smoke detector could do its initial chirping quietly and during daylight hours. If you ignore them, then later it can escalate to around-the-clock 85-decibel alerts.

Ditto sensitivity. At the first wisps of a problem, give a gentle sound. If it gets worse, or 60 seconds pass, then get shrill.

Re: "how many do you need in one area?" the last three words do not apply. The low-battery chirp is loud enough that a dying battery anywhere in the house can wake you up. For the record, though, we were required to put one in every bedroom and two in our small hallway -- and that's just on our upper level.

Have you seen how quickly an actual house fire takes hold? There are videos of fire department demonstrations on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUh4rCjuYDA for example). In sixty (or even ten) seconds of gentle sounds, you'd probably be dead. Not to mention that smoke can take time to rise up to smoke detector level - crucial seconds that you could be using to escape rather than comfortably waking up.

As for the low battery chirp, it should be annoying - that way you attend to it rather than leaving it until later. And chirping only during the daylight hours - how is that helpful if you're out at work? The battery will be dead before you even know about it.

Smoke alarms should be intrusive when they need your attention. That's how they save lives.

P.S. as for the last point - I was actually referring to how difficult it is to work out which smoke detector is chirping. Thus my question - I can't see how it's difficult unless you have lots of smoke alarms. Badly explained on my part, sorry.

> In sixty (or even ten) seconds of gentle sounds, you'd probably be dead.

Which is why I also said that, if the problem gets worse that just a few wisps, the detector should immediately escalate to full alarm.

> And chirping only during the daylight hours - how is that helpful if you're out at work? The battery will be dead before you even know about it.

Again, it can start quiet and polite, and then escalate to more aggressive notifications if you ignore it.

> Which is why I also said that, if the problem gets worse that just a few wisps, the detector should immediately escalate to full alarm.

Indeed, but personally I don't want a dumb electronic device to make that judgement for me - I'd like to do it myself. I'll know instantly whether or not the house is on fire and I'd like to know instantly whether or not it seems like it might be. False positives are, as I said earlier, infinitely preferable to "he'd have made it out if he'd heard the alarm earlier". Besides, how do you decide what's "house fire smoke" vs "burnt toast smoke"? if the fire isn't adjacent to the detector then smoke may only reach the detector slowly.

I get the drive to make devices more intelligent and thus more convenient but I strongly disagree that this philosophy should apply in all cases. Sometimes 'basic' really is better. Not to mention that there's less to go wrong.

> Indeed, but personally I don't want a dumb electronic device to make that judgement for me

But ultimately, you have no choice. Even the ideal smoke detector that you have in mind is going to be a dumb electronic device that has to make a judgement for you.

It'll have some sort of threshold before the loud alarm goes off. I'm not suggesting that be changed.

What I'm suggesting is that, in addition to that, at an even more sensitive threshold, there be a quieter alarm, too.

Usually smoke detectors are a 1 in each room (and 1 in the main hallway) thing nowadays.

And as for the hunt for the low battery it is a problem (though usually only one week a year if you install the same smoke detector in all rooms at the same time. And it is hard to find because it emits a high chirp every 30-60 seconds but that chirp echoes throughout the house and is hard to pinpoint (especially if you do have 1 in each room).

But I agree loud and sensitive better than the alternative and you can avoid accidental set offs by not having one located near the kitchen stove, though most of the time bad smoke detector locations are in apartments where you wouldn't have a choice to move them anyway.

> But I agree loud and sensitive better than the alternative

You don't have to choose! If you want the loud alarm to go off when it detects X PPM, have a gentle alert go off when it detects (0.9 * X) PPM.

From a safety only perspective:

1) This doesn't detect carbon monoxide 2) One of the 1-star reviews states that Ionization alarms are old technology and unsafe compared to newer piezoelectric alarms.

Photoelectric.

> Sadly, this news arrives just weeks too late for us.

What happened?

I just bought ten ordinary smoke alarms.

My thoughts are with you and your family.

"Thoughts and prayers" would have been even more biting.

So instead you would buy ten Nest alarms for $130 each?

It's steep but then again, just the option of being notified about a fire when you're not at home makes me consider doing just that. When I'm away, I sometimes get a bad feeling and I check the surveillance cams remotely, but that's neither practical nor helpful. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't be so paranoid if there had never been a fire.

It's a drop in the bucket compared to the enormously expensive fire sprinkler system we were forced to install by 2010 national building code.

Okay if on the other end of the spectrum why wouldn't you have gone with a security/automation integrated system? As others have mentioned, Nest is clearly moving towards the home security space, where there are already many, many options for whole-home intelligence products that tell you remotely exactly what is going on, which fire alarm went off, allows you to control them from a touch panel (or a PC, smart phone or tablet), etc.

Ultimately that is what surprises me about Nest the most -- their products aren't doing anything new, but people who only ever made themselves aware of the ultra-low end compare Nest to a $9 smoke alarm and laud Nest for raising the bar...but the bar was raised years ago for those who are in that market.

Nest makes it user-friendly.

So you have trialed, for instance, the Honeywell Tuxedo Touch system? http://homesecurity.honeywell.com/tuxedo_touch.html

Nest is doing piecemeal what others do holistically (again, though, obviously because they want to do the whole thing one module at a time). I don't want a bunch of islands of home intelligence, but would rather have one home automation system. Which is why I made the point about cost -- it's one thing if your price range is $8 smoke alarms, but if you could seriously contemplate 10 Nest devices, you're a candidate for a real system.

The Nest Thermostat isnt flawless either so i doubt the first version of this will be: http://www.amazon.com/Nest-Learning-Thermostat-Generation-T2...

I love the Pathlight feature - an integrated motion controlled nightlight is a great idea. A nice example of an incremental feature that helps tell a story about the product and justify the relatively hefty price tag. Something you can talk about when you need to justify a $130 smoke/co alarm to your wife.

Seems like having a built in motion-detector could be a good entry into home security as well.

I just found out that in the UK you can get the fire department to come and install free alarms http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/smokealarms.asp

Lets home they have the budget to stretch to these :p

I suspect that only applies to people who are at risk, from the same website:

"We only target our visits at people and places where we know there is a higher risk of fire. This includes high risk individuals such as older people, especially those living alone, those with mobility, vision and hearing impairment, mental health services users and those liable to intoxication through alcohol/drug use. A combination of these factors will significantly increase the risk from fire."

I expect they have a quota, a friend at work got them installed and they don't meet that criteria. He said they got 10 year ones, that cost about £15 a pop.

There's this alarm[1],which costs half the price , offers talking warning, photoelectric detection and in home wireless alarms through the house(if there's a fire in the basement , you can know at the bedroom.

It would be pretty cheap for the company to offer small gateway that connects the alarm to the net.

The major difference between this and the nest is design, but does it justify doubling the price, especially when you need one for each room ?

[1]http://www.amazon.com/First-Alert-SCO501CN-3ST-SCO500-Combin...

"It’s time to love your smoke and carbon monoxide alarm."

lol what?

I love the way they make usual objects look good and function properly. Reminds me of Apple and its revolutions (iPhone, iPad, iPod) - but then again, I heard the founders come from Apple?

Yup, Tony Fadell was a VP there, he worked on the iPod and iPhone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Fadell

Matt Rogers was a lead software engineer there in the iPod division:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matt-rogers/3/8a2/866

The CEO was the genius behind the iPod and iPhone.

> Reminds me of Apple and its revolutions

Reminds me of Bose convincing people to pay $300 for a clock radio.

Lest that seem mean-spirited, I was one of the people who bought a Bose Wave radio, and yeah the bass response was excellent for its size, and it looked nice. My point is, you can pick just about any product category and respin it as X for Affluent People. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Great design.

One word of caution before anyone runs out and replaces all your smoke detectors: Ask your local fire inspector about it. Fire safety rules are very convoluted and very region/state/city specific and I've run up against seemingly irrational rules in various locales in multiple past lives. It's better to find out the rules up front than to run into issues with an inspection or even worse, get into a fight with an insurance company about it if the worst does happen. I also highly doubt these detectors would fly at all in an commercial settings, i.e. don't go replacing the detectors in your office without a long chat with your fire inspector.

The "wave to cancel the alarm" function bothers me.

What if there's a fire and there's movement in the room, for example because the cat jumps in front of the sensor or something falls over?

If it still detects smoke after a while, it elevates to "red" and starts making the usual annoying loud noises.

Ah, OK, I didn't see that.

It requires a period of waving, so neither of _those_ examples would/should stop it.

$130 is a tough sell when comparison shopping for alarms, but it's probably a much more interesting value proposition when your damn smoke alarm goes off when you're sleeping/cooking/taking a hot shower, you try to deal with it, and then you look to see if there are any alarms that exist which are not completely inscrutable.

The value proposition vs. the thermostadt seems less "smart vs. dumb" or "ugly vs. pretty" than "comprehensible vs. incomprehensible", or "infuriating vs. not infuriating".

I think the most interesting feature is the one at the end. How it talks to your thermostat and can shut off your heater/furnace if it detects CO, which is often the source.

I think this is pretty smart. The fire alarm in my small rented flat is pretty close to the kitchen, so I regularly have to try and fan smoke away from my panicking alarm.

Looks like a well designed concept, well executed.

My alarms are connected to the house power -- no batteries. That seems like the best way. Perhaps battery for power failures.

The failure mode of that is when the fire is electrical in nature, and causes house power to fail before the alarms notice.

Yes, all such devices will have battery backups. You should use them for just that situation.

Looks nice but $130 is expensive. I have 9 detectors in the house to comply with code. This is going to get expensive.

Man this would be a great place to work.

Is this product z-wave compatible?

So much opportunities out there.

Does it get Paul Graham's seal of approval?

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