Can visual alarms wake a person up?
In design terms an alarm strobe has removed everything unnecessary for its purpose and its sole purpose is to save your life on the rare occurrence of fire. It won't be on a charger or in your pants or sitting on the table by the TV or off with your spouse on a business trip.
It will be hanging on the wall, with power or backup power, hardwired to the alarm panel because that's what field experience has shown works.
Don't get me wrong, the sentiment behind the product is admirable. But the alarm industry is already deadly serious and has robust proven solutions based not on theory but on close attention to the causes and consequences of actual fires.
US Fire Administrationhttp://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/index.shtm
NFPA: http://www.nfpa.org/
Firehouse.com: http://www.firehouse.com/
Not that I think an iPhone is the correct place for such a life saving device, but redundancy is rarely a bad thing.
Or possibly not, maybe somebody can say for sure, but it strikes me as reasonable.
And on another note, it seems like emergency alarm systems should alert people in a number of different ways. Apparently it's not unusual for kids to sleep through regular household smoke detector alarms.
You can't tell if someone is awake based on pupillary light reflex.