Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Nest Introduces $129 'Protect' Connected Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detector

longofest said:
Never been a fan of combo smoke+CO detectors.

Smoke Rises... Carbon Monixide falls. You can't place one detector in one position and get good readings. You need a smoke detector high and a carbon monixide detector low to get good early warning detection.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't.

CO has a slightly lower density compared to air. As a gas, however, diffusion will ensure an equal concentration over time. The detector's vertical placement is irrelevant.
 
longofest said:
Never been a fan of combo smoke+CO detectors.

Smoke Rises... Carbon Monixide falls. You can't place one detector in one position and get good readings. You need a smoke detector high and a carbon monixide detector low to get good early warning detection.
Click to expand...

A common misconception.

When considering where to place a carbon monoxide detector, keep in mind that although carbon monoxide is roughly the same weight as air (carbon monoxide's specific gravity is 0.9657, as stated by the EPA; the National Resource Council lists the specific gravity of air as one), it may be contained in warm air coming from combustion appliances such as home heating equipment. If this is the case, carbon monoxide will rise with the warmer air.

Always follow the manufacturer's guidelines. They are based on the design characteristics and test results of each specific model. Nest states in the user guide that the ceiling (at least 12" from any wall) is the best place to mount the Nest Protect.
 
I wish they made something where you can plug in your electronics and turn them on/off with your phone.
 
$129 a piece? xN floors/hallways = $$$

And, they don't integrate to an alarm system?

If a smoke/whatever alarm is not silenced by a family member within time x, and the security company calls the house and nobody answers ... emergency services should be called because either nobody is there to call emergency services or people may have already been injured/unconscious/...

Not a bad idea to improve on the smoke alarm idea and daisy chain them, integrate an LED light etc., but no thanks.

It is another overpriced, restyled & glorified product, like their thermostat. We purchased two wifi/internet thermostats and had money left over compared to a NEST. I programmed them and didn't have to wait nor turn dials for a week, for it to know what to set the temperature to during the day.
 
As cool and futuristic as this smoke alarm is, I can't see myself spending $130 on something that does the exact same job as the standard smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detector I have that was much cheaper, works fine, and blends in with the house better.
 
Originally Posted by Locoboof said:
I love nest,I really do,however I'll have to pass on these. My home is 3288sft. 5 bed 4 baths,living room,dining room,family room....plus I have smoke detectors in my attic and garage. I'd need about 10 of these. That's just too costly for me. Love their products though. I bought two of their thermostats,one for upstairs one for downstairs. They say you can't put a price on safety,so who knows. I'll have to see just exactly how many I need. Great product,just wish they were cheaper.
Click to expand...

portishead said:
Yeah same here. I have an 8000 sq ft home with 2 Ferraris. Plus I have a 1000 sq ft gazebo next to my 2 hole golf course. Gonna have to pass.
Click to expand...

I just cancelled my space trip to buy that... I'm poor, just 100M left on the account...

----------
Alphabetize said:
As cool and futuristic as this smoke alarm is, I can't see myself spending $130 on something that does the exact same job as the standard smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detector I have that was much cheaper, works fine, and blends in with the house better.
Click to expand...

I guess you can buy Nokia instead of iPhone or buy Toyota instead of Mercedes and say the same...

This is a premium product not made for the masses and it must cost that much you like it or not...
 
I had no idea that Americans had so many smoke alarms in their houses. In the UK most people (in my experience) will have one alarm near the kitchen on the ground floor, and one on each other floor. I can't really see the necessity of having a fire alarm in every bedroom.

In my experience spontaneous combustion of anything is incredibly, vanishingly, rare, if not impossible. Random arson is also not that common a crime. Fire normally has to come from somewhere, such as cooking going wrong, poor or overloaded electrics or falling asleep whilst smoking. It is highly unlikely that a corner of your bedroom is going to just burst into flames without some warning.

Whilst the "falling asleep whilst smoking" may seem like a reason to have a fire alarm in every bedroom, I would argue that bed being on fire will act as just an apt a warning for the person most at danger as a loud beeping noise.
 
Vercingetorix said:
I have an old house with a smoke detector already there. I'm aware that the modern recommendation is not to install them in kitchens for this exact reason, false alarms -- but still, the kitchen is by far the most likely place where a fire would start. It would be worth $129 to me to have a smoke detector in close proximity to the only place in my house where I light a fire every day without it being a constant annoyance.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a great use for this device.
 
Lostanddamned said:
I had no idea that Americans had so many smoke alarms in their houses. In the UK most people (in my experience) will have one alarm near the kitchen on the ground floor, and one on each other floor. I can't really see the necessity of having a fire alarm in every bedroom.

In my experience spontaneous combustion of anything is incredibly, vanishingly, rare, if not impossible. Random arson is also not that common a crime. Fire normally has to come from somewhere, such as cooking going wrong, poor or overloaded electrics or falling asleep whilst smoking. It is highly unlikely that a corner of your bedroom is going to just burst into flames without some warning.

Whilst the "falling asleep whilst smoking" may seem like a reason to have a fire alarm in every bedroom, I would argue that bed being on fire will act as just an apt a warning for the person most at danger as a loud beeping noise.
Click to expand...

I thought the same. I have a brand new house with one detector in the kitchen even though for some reason it is not recommended to be there and one in the hall upstairs. Some people claim they would need 10 of them in their house across the pond. There must be a strong lobby from companies selling this stuff and forcing unnecessary laws.
 
JaySoul said:
Anything that can prevent the real life Phoebe in "Friends" night I had last week - blip blip blip at 4AM - is a great product.
Click to expand...

Why does it always seem like it happens at 4AM? And Ford forbid if you have more than a couple too. The ones here are AC powered, but if you remove the battery, the case won't close, and they beep anyway... Damn things...
 
Phalkcon said:
I thought the same. I have a brand new house with one detector in the kitchen even though for some reason it is not recommended to be there and one in the hall upstairs. Some people claim they would need 10 of them in their house across the pond. There must be a strong lobby from companies selling this stuff and forcing unnecessary laws.
Click to expand...

Some of the ones here are CO detectors. Our local building codes, apparently, require a good peppering of those around the house. The CO detectors go bad quicker than smoke alarms too... People are afraid of dying in a fire. OH, we also just missed having to have arc circuit breakers in the circuit breaker box. They were, at the time, like 4 times the cost of a normal circuit breaker. The idea being, I guess, that if a fire were to start in a bedroom, it would be from metal items draping across a plugged in cord. Putting necklaces on plugged in items in the bathroom is a bad idea I found out. :eek:

I love their thermostats, but the smoke alarm sounds even more ridiculously expensive... I can hear a salesman now saying, 'But what is the value of your life, and of being warmed to get out before you die in a fire'.
 
icerabbit said:
And, they don't integrate to an alarm system?
Click to expand...

did you read their website? they have a third model that does that, coming out 2014.

If a smoke/whatever alarm is not silenced by a family member within time x, and the security company calls the house and nobody answers ... emergency services should be called because either nobody is there to call emergency services or people may have already been injured/unconscious/...
Click to expand...

...which is a different use case than a stand-alone detector. and smarter, thus more expensive.

It is another overpriced, restyled & glorified product, like their thermostat. We purchased two wifi/internet thermostats and had money left over compared to a NEST. I programmed them and didn't have to wait nor turn dials for a week, for it to know what to set the temperature to during the day.
Click to expand...

i dont think you understand how the Nest works. most people dont bother to program their thermos, thus the auto-learning. however if you are the sort to program your thermo, then its very, very easy to set up a schedule in Nest. took far less time than my previous, klunky digital thermo. thus i dont find the Nest overpriced or glorified -- i find it useful and offering value, so i bought it and continue to find value in it. as do many others. you dont. oh well -- no single product satisfies everybody. for example, i dont like Coke and wont buy it.
 
My existing eight smoke detectors (3300 sq foot house) are about to go terminal (8+ years old now) so I would love to replace them with these. I can even come close to justifying the cost because both my wife and myself have dealt with the dreaded 3AM alarm chirp from a detector with a low battery.

What I can't stomach is that $1000 worth of detectors will have to be thrown in the landfill after 7 years because the CO detector goes bad and you can't just replace the sensor components.

I do think that a version 2.0 of this could come out in another year or two where they do a hub and spoke design. Full featured detector for some areas of the home and cheaper satellites with a little less functionality for other areas.

They also have a lot of capability with this thing due to the motion detector to do things like secure your house when you are away on vacation.... I expect those features will get added over time. They could even add a cheap security camera to this thing with a fish-eye lens and it could function as a pretty good alarm setup.

In any event, can't justify shelling out $700 more than other alarms will cost me when these have a relatively short lifespan.
 
I am loving this concept, especially if they continue to grow the capability.

I see one in every room and all interconnected.

Internet bridge throughout the house, room by room monitoring of temperature/occupancy/trespassing, as an intercom and/or baby monitor, satellite speakers for sound. Control lights, vents, appliances/equipment.

Agree, just smoke and CO is a bit lame, but I think they are on the start of something big.

"Siri, find my cat."
- "She's in the den, by the aquarium"
 
ipedro said:
With $15 monthly charges. No thanks.
Click to expand...

Charges are optional and only if you want monitoring. The Nest Protect has no monitoring option at all.

----------
mdelvecchio said:
did you read their website? they have a third model that does that, coming out 2014.
Click to expand...

I have been all over the Nest website and did not see anything from them about an upcoming model, though I did see it mentioned by another user in the forums. Can you provide a link?

Thanks,
 
DMinTX said:
Charges are optional and only if you want monitoring. The Nest Protect has no monitoring option at all.

----------



I have been all over the Nest website and did not see anything from them about an upcoming model, though I did see it mentioned by another user in the forums. Can you provide a link?

Thanks,
Click to expand...

Wasn't that hard to find it's in multiple places on their site. Anyways here you go:

http://support.nest.com/article/What-is-Nest-Protect-for-Security-Systems
 
Lostanddamned said:
I had no idea that Americans had so many smoke alarms in their houses. In the UK most people (in my experience) will have one alarm near the kitchen on the ground floor, and one on each other floor. I can't really see the necessity of having a fire alarm in every bedroom.

In my experience spontaneous combustion of anything is incredibly, vanishingly, rare, if not impossible. Random arson is also not that common a crime. Fire normally has to come from somewhere, such as cooking going wrong, poor or overloaded electrics or falling asleep whilst smoking. It is highly unlikely that a corner of your bedroom is going to just burst into flames without some warning.

Whilst the "falling asleep whilst smoking" may seem like a reason to have a fire alarm in every bedroom, I would argue that bed being on fire will act as just an apt a warning for the person most at danger as a loud beeping noise.
Click to expand...
People can easily sleep through a fire in their bedroom. NFPA code requires smoke detectors in every sleeping room, the hallway outside every sleeping room, and at least 1 on every other floor.

It's required in new construction and to sell a home. CO detectors are also required on every floor in a common area.

The interconnected detector/alarm in the bedroom is not primarily to detect smoke -- it's to wake up the occupants as quickly as possible after a fire is detected.

I'm a firefighter and trust me, 30 seconds can make a hell of a lot of difference to whether you can get the kids and fido out of the house in time.

I ordered six for our 3 floor, 3 bedroom townhouse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back