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All the chat about leaving your woodburner running overnight has reminded me I want to replace all our ageing smoke detectors with shiny new interlinked wireless ones. Can anyone recommend some - I'm after battery only?
Should I be considering heat detectors instead in certain locations (toast-related query.)?
Nest
Cheers. OK, perhaps not that shiny!
Any decent ones out there at the 25 quid each mark?
Not nest. Way overpriced especially if you need more than 2.
Wireless interlinked? I've just installed a wireless, battery aico radiolink detector in every bedroom (3), a heat one in the kitchen (do not put smoke detector in kitchen) and interlinked them all with the three wired alarms we already have. Also got a remote so can silence and test from a convenient location. We have 7 alarms now, paranoia overload here. Still need to add one in the lounge but can't decided between smoke or heat with open fire.
Fire Angle do a range for about £30 each, but they have lifetime batteries which don't last as long as they say. They do the linked bit ok.
Fire Angle do a range for about £30 each, but they have lifetime batteries which don’t last as long as they say.
Looked at those - the battery life thing is offputting though. Might as well shell out for Nest if the unit is junk inside two years.
Aico might do the trick, although a bit more spendy than I was hoping.
Those are sealed for life 10 year batteries. They also do radiolinked ones which take 9v batteries that are more like £30 each.
Nice things about Nest:
When they go off they tell you which room the smoke is in, very very nice.
They are also carbon monoxide detectors which can be useful with burny things
If one stops talking to the rest then you get an email and it also flashes to tell you
Bad things about Nest:
Price
The Nest ones do look lovely, but at 90 quid a pop, I'll have to decide which family member I'm prepared to lose. The cats will certainly be left to their fate.
Fire Angel sounds the job if I can replace the battery, cheers.
Cheers all.
Sorry meant aico do an interlinked one with replaceable batteries.
Leffeboy has the answer. 9quid a year isn’t that bad.
Are any of those plus points about the Nest actually useful?
Unless you live in a stately pile then why do you need to know which room is on fire? In a standard semi that is useless information.
Combined CO and smoke detectors complying to relevant EN standard are cheap and readily available.
Why would you want to take something cheap, reliable, effective and simple and make it "connected" for no obvious benefit?
You could consider heat detectors for garages / kitchens.
We have 5 Nests all linked, inc one in the workshop which links over Wifi and LAN. If the workshop catches fire, as long as it's not the wifi router, the alarms in the house all go off.
As we discovered on Xmas day (burnt oven) they really work very well, all 5 screaming 'smoke in the kichen' very loudly so there is no confusion as to which one has gone off and what the issue is. Plus I get SMS alerts to my phone, so even if I'm not in I get alerted something is happening.
I'll replace with the same when the CO sensors expire in about 8 years time....
Unless you live in a stately pile then why do you need to know which room is on fire? In a standard semi that is useless information.
You say that, but if you're woken in the middle of the night, there's no confusion as to which sensor has seen what e.g. Co in the living room, smoke in the workshop etc. With 5 interlinked alarms going off at 115 dB at 3am it's a lot quicker to work out what to do about it.
You say that, but if you’re woken in the middle of the night, there’s no confusion as to which sensor has seen what e.g. Co in the living room, smoke in the workshop etc. With 5 interlinked alarms going off at 115 dB at 3am it’s a lot quicker to work out what to do about it.
Add to that the alarms light a path for you and your young children to evacuate safely and quickly. If c02 is triggered and you have a nest thermostat then the alarms can automatically shut down the heating boiler. They run automatic sound tests once a month, report on battery health. Its clever enough to distinguish between some burnt toast and a real fire.
Yes they are more expensive but its a small price to pay for peace of mind and the safety of my family.
Another thing I like is as you turn out the lights, they have a light ring which glows. If it's green then they are all 100% ok and talking, yellow or orange and one has a weak battery / dropped off the network etc. So each night I know that all 5 are working and the Workshop Nest is connected to the house etc.
They run automatic sound tests once a month
Ours don't, the do email you to remind you to run a test though...
None of those are killer enough features to justify the extra cost in my view. Maybe the next generation or the one after that will be a no brainer but not yet.
Maybe the next generation or the one after that will be a no brainer
Depends how much carbon monoxide they get exposed to. 🙂
The Nest ones do look good, do they ever get discounted? I probably need four.
They were slightly discounted for black Friday last year. Other than that normally only when a new product is on the way.
We use the aico ones exclusively in all the properties that we build, maintain and manage. They are very reliable.
You get what you pay for. Nest for me.
I'm not worrying about £90 or so for the sake of a decent piece of life saving kit.
Look on ebay especially when there's a 10% off day.
They are Carbon Monoxide alarms too and the app is great.
Three Nest smoke alerms in my place. Very happy with them for the price.
If you are willing to pay £90 per detector then you would get much better protection by hard wiring some aico multi sensor detectors with lithium battery back-up and a combined heat/co in the kitchen if that’s where your boiler is.
The best thing to protect your family in the domestic home (in my opinion)is to have a good door on the kitchen and make sure you close it before retiring in the evening. And know where your keys are and have a plan.
And know where your keys are and have a plan.
All our work domestic rentals have lock turns on the inside, the commercials have push bar to open doors. Since starting in this business 15 years ago and realising how bonkers it is to need keys to exit in the event of an emergency, I have installed easy open internal locks on my front and back door.
If you are willing to pay £90 per detector then you would get much better protection by hard wiring some aico multi sensor detectors with lithium battery back-up and a combined heat/co in the kitchen if that’s where your boiler is.
So, identical to installing a mains powered Nest in the kitchen (which has built in battery back up). You get Co, smoke and heat, wireless linking and phone / SMS alerts.
One product from a company who's business is built in making smoke alarms and has a long standing reputation. One from a tech startup owned by a company with a track record.of killing products off. Hmmmm which one is the safe bet here. Nest is at best grade D system. Aico make grade A systems. Think that means your unlikely to get building regs sign off for a nest system (e.g when doing a loft conversion).
I'm my smoke alarm is going off at 3am i don't care what message it's sending my phone or what the alarms are trying to tell me
The only thing I'm going to be doing is getting my family outside.
Am I the odd one there ?
Nope terry . Also use mains wired ones not batteries - You just place them next to a ceiling light and run off them assuming you have a permanent live loop in loop out system. thats what I am fitting in my flat.
Yeah I have a mains linked system with a heat detector in kitchen and smoke detectors in the other rooms.
They were not 90 quid each.
Also what good is wifi linking when power might be out or your router on fire. Safety systems should be as simple as possible adn independent of anything else - the mains wired ones have a battery back up so if power is off they still work and still interlink.
I’m my smoke alarm is going off at 3am i don’t care what message it’s sending my phone or what the alarms are trying to tell me
The only thing I’m going to be doing is getting my family outside.
Am I the odd one there ?
probably best to do that when I'm on nights, time the crew all go for old mannies pee's could be 4am by time I get to yours
Did you mean when your not on nights ? I'm sure you fall under that category 😉
the mains wired ones have a battery back up so if power is off they still work and still interlink
So just like the nest ones then. You will lose it talking to your phone though
In building a new house I felt quite strongly that having plenty of easy exits and avoiding needing a key to open any of them (I insisted on thumb turns) made up most of our fire protection. That said, we too have specced Nest alarms, although I'm skeptical as to the cost/benefit debate compared with other good alternatives.
When we did a loft conversion we had to put in the linked mains wired ones. We have since discovered that the best way of getting our 16 yr old son, who inhabits said loft conversion, out of his bed in the morning, is to burn the toast in the kitchen...
Footflaps - you don’t have a smoke / heat / co detector. Aico were the first to bring a combined heat / co to the market and I’m not sure if that is even available yet to the general public.
I was luckily to be invited to the product launch of the new aico multi and it is far in advance on anything currently on the market. When it detects smoke (below the level that would activate) it confirms that it is smoke from fire and not cooking/condensation etc and increases its sensitivity ensuring early activation and eliminating false alarms.
This is even more beneficial if you rent property’s out as an alarm that activates often doesn’t stay on the ceiling long leaving properties unprotected.
you don’t have a smoke / heat / co detector
Eh!? The nest has a light sensor for smoke, a CO sensor, a heat sensor and humidity sensor.
Then why would you need it to detect heat then?
Serious question.... smoke detectors activate long before a heat detector, you only use a rate of rise heat detector when the room it’s in produces smoke, fumes that would set off a smoke
A combined heat / smoke detector makes zero sense and wouldn’t work
I'd imagine the heat sensor in a nest is not related to the fire protection.
But as you know smoke will always activate way before heat then you’d effectively have a smoke detector in the kitchen???
So it’s doesnt work if it is indeed sold as smoke/heat/co
Also what good is wifi linking when power might be out or your router on fire
Nests don't talk to each other by wifi - that's only for sending you checkup emails. They talk to each other using their own mesh network
The battery set and a spare set of batteries are cheaper than the wired version so I'm not sure I'd bother with wiring them up to mains as you need to replace after 10 years
Getting an email every month saying that they have run tests, all batteries are ok and they are all still linked is brilliant. It's as close to fit and forget as you will get
If it detects a bit of smoke it warns you where it is before going to full alarm. Gives you a chance to go and check it out rather than going to full evacuate mode
cheaper options are available and it's value, like bikes, depends a bit on how much cash you have. It's not an absolute thing. I'm replacing them with like when they expire as I'm convinced
Do the Nest sensors need any data access outside of the property, for instance uploading anything to the Nest account? I need a mains-wired version for a new house, and my wife really likes the look and functionality of the Nest system. I just want to make sure they don't consume much of our metered 4G broadband connection
When it detects smoke (below the level that would activate) it confirms that it is smoke from fire and not cooking/condensation etc and increases its sensitivity ensuring early activation and eliminating false alarms.
just like a nest then.