Co-mingling Nest Protect with conventional wired smoke detectors

[simonmason]

I have wired smoke detectors on each of three floors of our house (3) and one in every bedroom (5). I was thinking of replacing the smoke detectors on the three floors with the Nest and using the plugin for HS3. I was also thinking of keeping the existing wired detectors in the bedrooms - for now - mostly for cost reasons. As the Nest Protect communicates with the other Nests wirelessly, then the existing detectors will continue to communicate with each other on the wired channel.

I recognize that if the smoke is in the hallway, then the Nests will pick it up and the bedroom detectors will not go off until one of them senses it. But I will use the plugin to set off the fire alarm, etc.

Does anyone see an issue with this configuration? Thanks.

[cjohlandt]

I don't have an answer but I have wondered the same thing, so I'm following this thread. You might want to fix the subject though ;-)

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[simonmason]

I fixed the title. Thanks.

I am guessing that doing this is not to code as not all smoke detectors would trigger in the event of smoke. However, buying 8 nest detectors at once is quite an expense.

[Timon]

If you have Kidde or FireX interconnected Smoke and CO detectors then you can easily intergrade them into your HomeSeer HS3 system. I wrote a HowTo guide that you can find here.

This way you can keep your existing Smoke and CO detectors while switching over to Nest Protect. All of you're existing devices will be viewed as a single device while the Nests will be shown as individual devices.

The other reason to do this is when you have areas you can't use Standard Smoke detectors and have to use Heat Detectors. These places include attics and garages. This will allow you to keep those areas covered.

It's too bad that Nest didn't design the Protect so it would work with existing Smoke and CO detector built by companies like Kidde. Then existing detectors would correctly sound along with the Nest plus the Nest could tell you that the existing one triggered. As it is I believe that it's a safety issue when you mix Nest Protect along with existing devices.

Nest could easily fix this by offering a small device which would connect to the existing interconnect and they relay their status back to the Next Protect.

Since I don't have any Protects yet I've been wondering how they communicate with each other. If they do it via WiFi only then I see a big safety issue if your WiFi router or access point fails. If that happens you won't know in a bedroom if you have smoke detected in the family room. Not Good!

If Kidde ever added Z-Wave or WiFi, if we could connect to it, to their wired detectors and kept the existing interconnect system I'd buy them over Nest in a heart beat.

[jrfuda]

Nest protects use a proprietary wireless network to communicate with each other. The Wi-Fi just lets them communicate with the thermostat and cloud.

If you dig through the FAQ at the Nest site, you'll see there explanation for choosing the wireless interconnection instead of a wired interconnection is so the individual protects could identify themselves to the others and sound the appropriate "smoke detected in X room" alarm. The wired protects use the wiring only for power and not for interconnection. The good thing about the wired connectors is they send motion updates to the cloud and thermostat immediately - which increases home/away reaction time - whereas the battery only protects push the info on a schedule (maybe once a day) that only create habitation patterns but not real-time motion tracking.

I think you already identified the biggest problem - smoke/fire detected by the Nests won't alert you in the non-Nest rooms and vice-versa.

I have 9 battery operated Protects and a Nest Thermostat (old house - no existing wired smokes). As my never ending remodeling saga continues I will likely run wire to the detector locations so I can change them to wired models when these expire in 7-10 years.

I cannot imagine what will be available by then - hopefully an Echo/Google Home-like device that also does all your environmental (motion, temp, RH, light, glass break, other audio etc.) monitoring plus paging, whole-house music, night lights, Wi-Fi mesh, and so forth.