Why You Can Trust CNET Smart smoke detector buying guide
Looking for a smoke detector you can keep tabs on from your phone? Here's where to start.
Adding smarts to smoke detection can feel like walking a treacherous path. Old-fashioned smoke detectors have served as a fine warning system for a long time. Yes, between false alarms and low-battery chirping, they can be annoying, but for a service so essential, some annoyance is an easy trade-off. So tinkering with the established formula can feel like an unnecessarily risky move. And caution is needed, as we've seen plenty of unreliable smart home devices.
Yet, smart home smoke detection can add to your safety and peace of mind by sending you a remote notification when something goes wrong -- facilitating a faster call to emergency services when you're away from home.
As with the rest of the smart home, the difference between a frustrating smart home experience and one that can add convenience and help reduce danger comes down to picking the right device for you. We're here to help.
Device categories
The similarities between the following smoke safety devices start and end with one main function -- when your smoke alarm sounds, you'll get a push notification to your phone, whether you're home or away. How they do this, what else they do, how much they cost and how many smoke alarms you can cover with a single device vary widely from category to category, and even within the categories themselves.
Here are the different types of devices you can use to alert you from afar when your smoke detector sounds.
1) Smart smoke detectors: The most obvious way to add smarts to your smoke detectors is to replace the device itself with an internet-connected version. Led in popularity by the Nest Protect, your choices include models from First Alert, Halo Smart Labs and Roost. More options are on the way from Birdi and Netatmo.
Wholesale replacement is the most expensive and comprehensive solution. Expect to pay $100 or more for each detector you want to swap, but you'll usually get conveniences like being able to silence false alarms from an app and push notification when the batteries are low so you don't have to deal with chirping. The Nest Protect, First Alert and Roost models we tested also include carbon monoxide detection.
2) Listeners: Plug one of these into your wall and it'll listen for the specific frequency of detectors' alarms and send you an alert when it hears something. If you have a small home, you probably won't actually save much money with a listening device. Both US-only, the Leeo Smart Alert costs $50 and Kidde RemoteLync Monitor costs $100 -- as much as the Nest Protect.
Since none of these devices talk directly to your smoke detectors, you won't get any help mitigating annoyances like false alarms or low battery chirps. You'll start to see the cost advantages of a listener if you have a big home and you want complete connected coverage, as a single device can cover upwards of a floor of your home. So instead of having to replace the smoke detector in every bedroom, you can put one listener in the hallway and be done with it.
3) Smart batteries: As of right now, you only have one option in this category, the Roost Smart Battery, but it's a compelling idea nonetheless. The Roost costs $35 or £40 (about AU$50), looks and acts like a 9V, connects to your Wi-Fi network and sits in your smoke detector like any other battery. Except unlike a normal battery, you'll get a push notification when the smoke detector sounds and an alert when the five-year battery starts running low (you can replace the battery part for $15). If your smoke detector only uses battery power, you can even silence your alarm with the Roost, but you lose that function with hardwired alarms that use a battery backup.
The Roost seems like a less permanent solution than the other two categories, but most smoke detectors are only rated to last for 10 years. You'll have to put a Roost into every smoke detector for complete coverage, so it's not as efficient at comprehensive smarts as a listener, but it's a more cost-effective route than wholesale replacement and neutralizes more inconveniences than listeners.
Smoke detectors
The Nest Protect (second generation).
Asides from smarts, smoke detectors do the detecting part of their job with tried and true methods detailed in this article on the science of smoke detectors. In short, the two basic types of smoke detectors are ionized and photoelectric. Ionized detectors are cheaper but more prone to false alarms than their photoelectric counterparts.
The Nest Protect and the First Alert OneLink Wi-Fi Smoke and CO Alarm both use photoelectric sensors. The more expensive sensor helps justify the cost of each -- $100 or £89 (about AU$150) for the Nest Protect and $110 to $120 (about £80, AU$165) for First Alert depending on whether you want a battery-powered or hardwired model.
The Nest Protect goes one step further than a simple photoelectric setup with a split-spectrum sensor that's supposedly better at detecting smoldering fires. The $60-$80 US-only Roost Smart Smoke Alarms (the cheaper version doesn't detect CO) use a microprocessor in addition to an ionized detector to help reduce false alarms.
If you're hesitant about smart smoke detection, you can at least rest assured that the basic functionality is the same as on non-smart detectors. And that was borne out in our testing. In terms of detecting smoke and sounding the alarm, all three smoke alarms we've tested were roughly as responsive as an ordinary Kidde smoke detector.
The smarts, however, were far from equal. The second-generation Nest Protect sends you a push alert when the alarm sounds. You can also silence the alarm via the app. In theory, the First Alert Smoke Alarm should have similar functionality, but the push alerts were so slow and the app so unresponsive that they render the smarts nearly useless. Roost's alarm just packages the company's battery with an ordinary smoke detector -- so it has the same drawbacks as the battery on its own, but costs more.
Halo alarms monitor the weather and integrate with the Lowe's Iris smart home system. Birdi's upcoming devices will monitor air quality as well as smoke and carbon monoxide. Netatmo's alarm will work with Apple's HomeKit.
We'll test Halo soon and the others once they're available. For now, we strongly recommend the Nest Protect if you want a device in this category.
Listeners
The Leeo Smart Alert.
If you want to cover more territory with a single device, the choice between gadgets that listen for smoke and CO alarms isn't as clear cut. Both options that we've tested -- the Leeo Smart Alert and the Kidde RemoteLync Monitor -- performed competently, but neither wowed us.
If you want a colorful night light attached to your listener, go with Leeo. Otherwise, Kidde does well as a simpler alternative. Both cover a single floor well enough.
Alternatives
If a smart battery is your category of choice, you'll need to go with the Roost Smart Battery. That's a fine option, as Roost responded quickly to our alarms when we tested it. And, again, it eliminates chirping.
The Roost Smart Battery.
Or you could go a different route altogether, as a number of smart home sensors don't specifically detect fire or listen for alarms, but have temperature sensors and warning thresholds you could use to approximate the process. Your options include the $50 (£35, AU$60) Quirky Spotter, the $80/£70 (AU$120) Elgato Eve Room and temperature sensors that work as part of larger smart home platforms such as SmartThings, Insteon and Lowe's Iris. I wouldn't recommend any of those as standalone smoke or fire safety devices, but they could work in tandem with a proper smoke detector.
Picking the right device for you
As with any other category in the smart home, I recommend starting small and building from there once you've found a device you like. Think about the size of your home when picking your device category for smart smoke detection. Having a plan in place can help you smoothly expand from a single device. But I'd still start with one, even if you decide on Roost or Nest Protect, which need multiple units for whole home coverage. Place it in your kitchen or a high traffic area and you'll get a good sense of how useful it is for you.
If your new safety device whets your appetite for the smart home, here's our buying guide for smart security and for smart locks.