Google's Nest Stops Selling Smart Smoke Alarms Over Fire Safety Concerns
ibtimes.co.uk
ibtimes.co.uk
How can I be 100 % sure that the "just beep when smoke" feature can't be remotely disabled without my notice?
Intelligent home appliances are nice and all, but when the lives of your family depend on it, I'd rather be on the KISS side.
Would you therefore avoid streets?
[1] http://phys.org/news/2011-01-internet-users-worldwide-billio...
What are the chance sone anonymous kid will cut your fire alarm just for giggles? Pretty high.
Just take a look at 4chan and Reddit messing with people's internet security cameras.
I guess that's where we disagree; I would have said, "Less than the chances of getting hit by a bus on the way to work."
We're talking about an expensive gadget that introduces new risks, for a questionable return.
Nest has stopped selling its smart smoke alarms after it discovered a flaw
which could prevent the timely detection of fire.
the company is not aware of any customers who have experienced it
it's like selling a car with a broken airbag. "well, it's not caused me a problem, I don't see the issue ..."
(I'm not criticising Nest, they're doing the right thing. I'm saying it's bad journalism to throw that in the article as if that mitigates things)
> Nest's own internal testing identified this problem and the company is not aware of any customers who have experienced it, "but the fact that it could even potentially happen is extremely important to me and I want to address it immediately."
Where did they imply that the situation is better because no one has experienced the failure??
But this device also show-cases how bringing "smartness" into safety devices is fraught with risk and in the case smoke detector the convenience is not worth the economics. The Nest thermostat was true win-win value proposition - where as the Smoke detector is just not that.
Basically the wave to disable alarm feature is too aggressive, and other movements can disable it.
I guess terrible won out. It is still a scary feature to me in concept, even if it wasn't broken. This is a safety device, it shouldn't be easy to disarm.
The feature was having the detector unknowingly disabled. A better analogy would be the batteries in your smoke detector running out.
So providing a wave-to-disarm feature could literally save lives, if it discourages people from removing batteries or placing tape over the speaker.
Similarly, when there's one in the kitchen and it goes off constantly every time you make toast, it's a major ongoing annoyance.
Many people will respond to these situations by removing the batteries, covering the speaker with tape, or other things that lessen the functionality of the device in the event of an actual emergency.
Therefore, a properly-functioning wave-to-disarm feature (and other irritation-mitigation mechanisms) are not just conveniences; they literally save lives.
I'd be interested to know how well these things line up, you're expecting a big overlap in people who will disable their smoke alarms because it's too much hassle and people who will go out and buy an expensive and fancy one. So you're looking for someone who really cares about their fire alarm but is stupid enough to completely disable one.
However, a non-functioning disable feature could be either phenomenally annoying or hugely dangerous. I don't want to worry that my smoke alarm has turned off just because my dog ran past it or because of a bug. We're also talking about a device which can have its settings updated remotely, what if an update bricks it or turns back on something I feel is unsafe?
> When a smoke detector starts falsely making noise in the middle of the night
I'm not sure I've ever had this happen, would not getting a decent smoke alarm solve this?
> Similarly, when there's one in the kitchen
I've never had a smoke alarm in the kitchen. In the hall next to the kitchen, yes, but not in the kitchen. That's across 9 houses/flats, the last time I set off one from cooking was about 8 years ago. I'm happy dealing with a once-a-decade annoyance.
The scary feature is my current method of taking the battery out of the smoke detector. I have yet to understand how this "old feature" is better than nest's feature.
Safety concern, slightly. Nest has made note that this feature have never been compromised yet (then again, its the one time when the Wave does fail that caused a huge issue so this point is null). Also, the Wave feature does not affect the detection of smoke, only the resulting alarm.
I think there is something else going on here. Possibly a more serious safety hazard. If a software update can solve the Wave issue, then why the stopped sales? If there are stopped sales, why not a more serious email/note or a recall?
As a safety device, it's a no brainer - I have to return it until it's rock solid. I can't knowingly replace my existing smoke detector with one which has the potential to under perform.
The company have said it doesn't - there is a potential that the device will not alert when smoke is detected because of a false positive when detecting waving. The feature actively affects the performance if the device which is why it is being disabled.
- That I've paid for a smoke detector that doesn't do the same as was advertised when I purchased it,
- That Nest have said "We're stopping these from being purchased until we fix them", not "As soon as you install it, it'll download a patch that turns off the wave feature. What's the problem?"