Seriously: which smoke detectors are best at/for automation?

[NeverDie]

The Insteon bridge to OneLink is called "Smoke Bridge":



http://www.insteon.com/2982-222-smoke-bridge.html

So, to use that from HomeSeer, you need some kind of Insteon hub or generic Insteon interface.

Are there any alternatives to zsmoke or Smoke Bridge for interfacing with Smoke Alarms? Or, is that all that's available? Anybody know?

[Automated]

Seriously: which smoke detectors are best at/for automation?

Do you mean battery powered and wireless only then? System Sensor and plenty of others have low voltage wired ones. You could use either an alarm panel or any general purpose input (audio-100, x-10, Instepn, etc.) board to make the interface to Homeseer.

Also, the Iris place on store shelves shrinking might be a good thing if they decide to drop it, like Radio Shack did with zwave a few years ago. I got a whole box full, maybe a thousand dollars worth, for only a few hundred on clearance!

[NeverDie]

Just found this. Here's free online access to NPFA codes and guidelines:

http://www.nfpa.org/freeaccess

[NeverDie]

Traditional smoke detector thinking is not to go find the potential fire. It is to get your attention and get you out of the house. This is why you do not see more offerings catering to the function of telling you what detector went off.

Agreed. I was hoping to at least do better than what's "traditional" through some low cost and hopefully easy upgrades to my existing setup, but with code, insurance, and other requirements, it's proving unexpectedly difficult to arrive at an optimal solution. I'm beginning to doubt I can get there from here by hill climbing. Right now I'm weighing the alternatives to see what the tradeoffs will need to be. Because of time constraints imposed by an earlier remodel, I hadn't given adequate consideration to an alarm panel centric solution. In retrospect, I should have. I should probably consider it now, even though the perfect window for doing it has passed. It would still be achievable, and I'll just have to weigh its cost as a tradeoff as compared to alternative tradeoffs.

[Pete]

Yup; here smokes were never a concern. It was just a new automation challenge to wire up a replicate of what was in place and connect them to the panel. (I used sub boards in the panel just related to the zones / smokes).

About 3 years ago replaced all of the 120VAC / Battery smokes as the old ones were installed with new construction around 2000 in house #2. There the contractor put one in every room which is a PITA cuz main part of the house has high ceilings and parts are carpeted such that the ladder was a bit wobbly. The new ones had a different base and plug such that I had remove and rewire. I have an HAI OPII panel there but will probably never wire up the smokes or add a zoned set up.

Side rant....#1...

I did have one issue here in the midwest on the second floor with one smoke. It was the middle of the night chirping thing on the 120VAC/Battery smoke. It wasn't the battery. The "call" came in from wife while I was in the EU on business travel. Very low WAF. What happened was that moisture got into the metal electrical box and dripped on to the smoke detector from the attic. It was a condensation thing and only happened with one of a few smokes on the second floor. I adjusted the vapor barrier and all was well. I have had moisture related issues in the attic. It is vented fine. Ceiling is high (8 feet?). I had to redo bathrooms exhaust fan duct work as I had a similar issue in all (at the same time) the exhaust fans. The round ducts were not insulated and I replaced them with insulated duct work. This was another low WAF thing as the power exhaust fans sits over the toilets and were dripping on to our heads; annoying stuff.

Side rant....#2...

Relative (won't say who) was cooking dinner in her kitchen one day....concurrently went outside to the backyard to chat with the neighbor. All of the yard facing windows were open. Not sure if there were smokes in place or whether they were functioning. Neighbor while speaking to related noted in the middle of the conversation flames and smoke coming from the kitchen windows. Well it was too late. The fire was put out but the kitchen was trashed and the smoke damaged much of the home. Smokes would have gone off maybe too with a remote "ping"; but it really wouldn't have helped much in this situation other than knowing that they triggered.

Side rant ....#3....

Again while out of town....won't go into detail other than the destruction of the outdoor BBQ (natural gas) fire which fused anything non metal on the grill itself (gas knobs melted to front of the grill). Panic. Two gas shut offs in place; but she didn't where they were. She called neighbor over to shut off the gas. It was a bit late as the grill was trash (never seen this happen). I cannot think of any automation that would have helped in this situation.

A quickie synopsis.

I guess it's nice to know if and when a smoke goes off when you are not home; but historically here it never really would matter other than ruining a nice pleasant vacation or whatever.

[NeverDie]

Also, you can interface almost any "proper" low voltage smoke detector with HS through an alarm panel interface. So there are a multitude of offerings. In those cases,you could easily wire them such that there is a trigger per zone. However, due to legislation, code, and the modes of operation alarm panels are listed for (all smokes wired together, not split up) out of the box, there is no quick plug and play solution if that is what is meant by "any hope for interfacing with Homeseer).

By "out of the box" are you saying that to be code compliant all the smokes connected to an alarm panel are required to be wired together (effectively creating one monolithic mega detector), or rather do you mean the code allows them to be wired together, and so "out of the box" alarm panels are pre-configured that way because that's how smokes are most often wired into the panel?

Which alarm panel smoke detectors do you like?

[NeverDie]

OK, I just took a some of the alarm panel smoke detectors, and finally I'm seeing the kind of features that just do not seem to exist in non-alarm panel sensors:
1. self diagnostics that test sensitivity and even notify you when the detector should be cleaned.
2. a simple way to clean out the optics chamber with a 1 to 2 second blast of canned air without having to do any disassembly or removal of the detector housing
3. battery level monitoring and notifications that quietly alert you weeks before the detector would otherwise start chirping. Of course, if you ignore those warnings, it will ultimately chirp at you when the time comes.
4. wider operating temperature operating, some up to 140 degrees and many up to 120 degrees, as contrasted to the 100F max for the more common hardwired detectors.

There are more advanced features than these, but I'd consider these to be the minimum.

BRK doesn't provide any meaningful instruction on how to clean their detectors (none that I've found anyway), and I'd wager that among the low percentage of people who ever do clean their smoke alarms, let alone at the recommended frequency, an even smaller percentage are doing it correctly. In fact, I'd wager most people who attempt to clean are either just vacuuming the exterior casing and/or possibly blasting the siren annunciator (not the sensor chamber) with canned air. I can imagine that an air blast to the wrong spot would actually make the detector chamber more dusty and prone to error, not less, by mobilizing dust that settled inside the casing but outside the sensor chamber. Also, given the way the sensor chamber is designed, it would seem to require a lot of canned air (much more than a 1 to 2 second blast) after a not-so-obvious disassembly to do a proper job.

Anyhow, right now I'm guessing I'll probably save more in canned air and cleaning time by buying fuller featured supervised detectors and connecting them with a proper alarm panel than it will cost me. I'm just amazed at how lousy the choices are for regular folk. BRK merged with FirstAlert, and Kidee merged with Firex, leaving a near duopoly of major brands controlling the choices available in the mass market.

I had previously thought wired smoke detectors would be more reliably than wireless, but after reading how "dirty" power can cause false alarms, I'm starting to think supervised, battery operated wireless smoke detectors may actually prove more robust and resilient than their wired counterparts. What do you all think? Anyhow, it certainly would make converting over to an alarm panel solution fairly painless.

[NeverDie]

This smoke detector (and more) may be the one you want.
http://www.fibaro.com/en/system-fibaro/smoke-sensor-en

I have no experience with this one but i have my eye on it too for some time now.

I like the much smaller footprint: about 2.5" diameter by about 1" deep.

The z-wave runs on non-US frequencies. So, importing it here would be pointless.

I also like that the recommended inspection interval is 1 month, not every week. That alone is a 4x improvement. Anyone know of smoke detectors whose recommended inspection interval is greater than 1 month? Are there any whose self diagnostics are so good that don't require any periodic inspection at all? The more it's set-and-forget, the better.

[NeverDie]

OK, so wiring them all together is what's typical, whether it's 2-wire or 4-wire:



What a great idea: one point of failure and all your smokes are wiped out at once. Then going forward the panel is blind to smoke and fires, and so are the building's occupants. So, the supervising panel signals an error condition, but I'd wager it doesn't send the fire trucks unless it had already detected smoke. What if it's a fire in the attic that broke the connection before the interior sensors detect any smoke? What are the statistics on that, I wonder. I would think you'd want a detection system to be resilient to whatever it's trying to detect, not fail around the very time it's needed most, let alone because of the very thing it was built to detect. Do the statistics say that type of scenario almost never happens?

I can see how the diagramed approach would allow the use of cheaper panel controllers (only one input needed for however many detectors are on the circuit). However, if that's what code actually requires (?) for wired smoke detectors, then I hope code allows the use of supervised wireless smoke detectors that have their own supervised batteries. Does anyone here happen to know, even if it's just for their own particular jurisdictional code? Looks as though it may be discussed in chapter 23 of NPFA 72, but I haven't delved into it yet.

[Pete]

Its a bit more than methodology of wiring. Its the wire used too.

https://www.anixter.com/north-americ...arm-cable.html

You might get better answers to your questions relating to said topic (OP: "Seriously: which smoke detectors are best at/for automation?") over on Cocoontech as there are professional commercial alarm installers on the forum there as well as many DIYers.

http://cocoontech.com/forums/

[NeverDie]

Its a bit more than methodology of wiring. Its the wire used too.

https://www.anixter.com/north-americ...arm-cable.html

You might get better answers to your questions relating to said topic (OP: "Seriously: which smoke detectors are best at/for automation?") over on Cocoontech as there are professional commercial alarm installers on the forum there as well as many DIYers.

http://cocoontech.com/forums/

Thanks. This well has run dry, so I'll migrate.

In parting, I'll note that these issues are evidently of high relevance to the Nest Protect, and according to this thread Nest will be releasing a version later this year to address thorny interconnect code requirements: https://community.nest.com/thread/2825

[Pete]

There is other stuff going on relating to this whole smoke detector stuff.

Many towns are "entertaining" that the existing codes and methodologies are not good enough and pushing for the installation of sprinkler systems in new home construction.

I am thinking some of this is already happening.

[AshaiRey]

I like the much smaller footprint: about 2.5" diameter by about 1" deep.

The z-wave runs on non-US frequencies. So, importing it here would be pointless.

They also come in US frequencies.
According to the manual these frequencies are available

868,4 MHz EU;
908,4 MHz US;
921,4 MHz ANZ;

869,2 MHz RU;

As far as i know you have to pick the right one when ordering.

[NeverDie]

They also come in US frequencies.
According to the manual these frequencies are available

868,4 MHz EU;
908,4 MHz US;
921,4 MHz ANZ;

869,2 MHz RU;

As far as i know you have to pick the right one when ordering.

Good catch! Thanks.

[ViperJD]

This smoke detector (and more) may be the one you want.
http://www.fibaro.com/en/system-fibaro/smoke-sensor-en

I have no experience with this one but i have my eye on it too for some time now.

That looks awesome. I love the video (at the end and on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50QG...p062eRjcqmoEdg )

The little section that shows the evacuation route is really cool - even Sheldon (Big Bang) would like that one.