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Make HomePod Alert You to Smoke Alarms

Twice the general condo alarm went off (it's so loud I keep an old paid of BeatsX to protect my ears) and neither HomePod mini sent an alert. A 3rd time I wasn't home, the alarm went off and...nothing. Maybe the alarm sounds in California are distinctly different than here in Canada? 😛
 
Was using Nest Protects with Starling for a while but the Protects and Starling are going the way of the dodo bird. Nothing really decent on the market for HomeKit these days with regards to smoke/CO.

I’m willing to try this route with some dumb detectors but I’m curious, can you run an automation or a scene using these HomePod smoke/CO notifications as the trigger?
 
jbachandouris said:
Well maybe I’d try that if the Network error went away. They both (2) let me play music through them but can’t even access temperature.

Tried factory resetting and repairing. Deleted home and all devices. Created new home and re added them. Apple TV has no problem and it’s connected to the exact same network.
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These issues usually appear when some network filtering is active. Many ISP provided wifi modem have "security" options enabled that interfere with HomeKit network traffic: options like "multicast storm control", "broadcast storm control", "IGMP Snooping" can all interfere. Disable them all. IGMP Snooping should only be enabled when you have a TV subscription from your ISP combined with their proprietary TV receiver box (using VLANs).

Once I had a Netgear switch that had no IPv6 support (according to the fine print in the manual). It turned out that some option was turned on that made the switch randomly drop IPv6 packets, causing all sorts of weird problems.
So, disable all these kinds of filters on the local network - they can al exist in routers, switches and wifi base stations.


TFrank2 said:
I’ve had this enabled for ages and tried to test it a few times to no avail. Anyone here have any luck with it?
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Once one of our HomePod mini's detected a car alarm that went off in the parking lot next to our house. The HomePod mini is placed in a room on the 2nd floor and a window (looking over the parking lot) was open at that moment. I got the notification while we were on our way home. All other family members in the car too. So I pulled over and while I grabbed my phone to see the message I accidentally touched the notification tile on screen - it did open the Home app but the actual warning message was already gone. Couldn't find the warning anywhere in the Home app.
All other moments that our smoke alarms went off in the house, no notifications at all. And we have very loud smoke alarms - hard to mis.
 
I recently needed new smoke alarms (the previous ones were 25 years old). I intended to replace all the old ones with Nest protect (I already have one and it’s great). Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to buy Nest protect, and they have been discontinued. There is a recommended alternative from First Alert, but that does not look as nice, or seem as good quality. As I needed 4 detectors I went with cheaper non-internet connected ones, just relying on the existing Nest protect for calling out if there is smoke. This HomePod feature will give that remote alert functionality at lower overall cost than 4 online smoke alarms (plus give HomePod functionality). I might wait for the HomePod with a screen before buying, but I see my roadmap ahead.
 
honglong1976 said:
Fire alarm went off for two hours in my building. Absolutely nothing from the HomePods with this setting on.
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A building(commercial) fire alarm generally sounds very different to a standalone smoke detector and the HomePod is only designed to pick up the beeps from a standalone domestic smoke detector, so this wouldn't surprise me
 
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seek3r said:
It literally kept my house from burning down (with my dog inside!!!!) last year. We got an alert and were able to call 911 and a friend to come over and get our pup
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Good to hear a few success stories on here. Glad you and your furry friend were ok!
 
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Sorry but software in professional security system should not ever be compared to Apple's buggy, non maintained software.
 
nt5672 said:
Sorry but software in professional security system should not ever be compared to Apple's buggy, non maintained software.
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apple advertises their products to consumers, not businesses. not their fault if you use it for non approved purposes.
 
macfacts said:
apple advertises their products to consumers, not businesses. not their fault if you use it for non approved purposes.
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Oh I won't because I understand the problem. Casual users that are expecting something more are in for the surprise.

Apple software is still unreliable and not to be trusted. Heck, Apple devices cannot even reliably deliver notifications to single or multiple devices using iCould.
 
nt5672 said:
Oh I won't because I understand the problem. Casual users that are expecting something more are in for the surprise.

Apple software is still unreliable and not to be trusted. Heck, Apple devices cannot even reliably deliver notifications to single or multiple devices using iCould.
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The smoke alarm alert isnt a replacement for anything, it’s additional feature that may help. And, as someone whom it really did help, I cant complain. I enabled it because “why not” and it saved my house and my dog
 
seek3r said:
The smoke alarm alert isnt a replacement for anything, it’s additional feature that may help. And, as someone whom it really did help, I cant complain. I enabled it because “why not” and it saved my house and my dog
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Understood. You got lucky. Good for you.

If your are concerned about your house, then get a monitored smoke alarm created by people that do that for a living.

Not an extra add on service created by foreign coders that probably don't even speak English, let alone care about whether your house burns down or not.
 
nt5672 said:
Not an extra add on service created by foreign coders that probably don't even speak English, let alone care about whether your house burns down or not.
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Apple’s primary development teams are in the US but also, as someone in tech who works with teams around the world daily, I’ll tell you it’s rather rare to encounter someone working as a software engineer for a big company that doesnt speak english. Your implication that devs outside the US arent competent or care about their work is absurd too.

I’m not sure why you felt the need to veer into a weird xenophobic tangent to add to your point, but it’s kinda gross and I hope you deeply think about why
 
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seek3r said:
Apple’s primary development teams are in the US but also, as someone in tech who works with teams around the world daily, I’ll tell you it’s rather rare to encounter someone working as a software engineer for a big company that doesnt speak english. Your implication that devs outside the US arent competent or care about their work is absurd too.

I’m not sure why you felt the need to veer into a weird xenophobic tangent to add to your point, but it’s kinda gross and I hope you deeply think about why
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Because Apple's software is so terribly bad, limited, breaks when upgrading, etc. Maybe you have another explaination?
 
nt5672 said:
Because Apple's software is so terribly bad, limited, breaks when upgrading, etc. Maybe you have another explaination?
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This may shock you but poor QA can come from US based teams, American exceptionalism isnt actually a thing, you dont need to immediately jump to “it must be foreigners” to explain poor QA.

That said overall I dont think Apple’s software is quite as bad as you seem to think it is
 
munpip214 said:
I just had a false alarm with my first alert hardwired (at 5am no less) and not only did the HomePod not report anything, but I also didn’t get any alert from the first alert alarms even though they are WiFi connected.
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Can't say I'm surprised, unfortunately. I had one of the "smart" First Alert alarms and was extremely disappointed.

  1. If other interconnected "dumb" alarms are triggered and make the "smart" alarm go off, it does not send you a remote alert, it only alerts if it is the one that triggered the alarm, basically useless then
  2. Often when the "smart" alarm would go off (I'd test it by blowing out a candle under it a few times) I would not get alerts on my phone
  3. It started going off randomly on its own (typically at night of course)
  4. I finally pulled the tab out that deactivates the alarm and it still kept chirping at me until I finally tore it apart and ripped out its heart.
Never again!
 
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