Smart Smoke / Heat Alarms

paulgrogan.eu

Hey guys,


I've had a good look around here, but haven't really been able to dig up much detail on recommendations on boards. Similar story when I research online, seems to be quite vague.


So, having previously been super successful courtesy of the good boards folk, I'm hoping I may again be successful.


So I run Home Assistant in my home, and any adjustments I'm making moving forward essentially centre around that. My spoke alarms are old now, so they're due an upgrade as 1 has recently stopped working. Naturally, I'm looking for a smart solution and hopefully one that has HA integration. Has anyone had much success with these and details of pricing and where to source? Any help would be very much appreciated.


Best,

Paul

Grassey

I believe the xiaomi honeywell smart smoke detectors can link to home assistant via zigbee2mqtt

I'd briefly started to look at them a while back and they seemed to tick most boxes.
Then I got distracted with something else.

s7ryf3925pivug

I have a couple of nest smoke/CO detectors. I dont have home assistant but I believe they are compatible. They seem very good. They look nice. If there is a bit of smoke from a steak or something it politely tells you that there is some smoke and the alarm might go off. The alarm is loud. I think that's a nice touch. They test themselves regularly and give you reports. They're easy to source. Amazon or currys or harvey norman.

wexfordman2

Jase Elegant Mango wrote: »

I have a couple of nest smoke/CO detectors. I dont have home assistant but I believe they are compatible. They seem very good. They look nice. If there is a bit of smoke from a steak or something it politely tells you that there is some smoke and the alarm might go off. The alarm is loud. I think that's a nice touch. They test themselves regularly and give you reports. They're easy to source. Amazon or currys or harvey norman.

If your in my house and the steaks go on, she sleeps also, bit the entire family, every time, without fail then pre empts nest and starts to speak out the warning, and everyone finishes with the chorus "the alarm is loud" (in the suitable accent)

paulgrogan.eu

Thanks for the suggestions folks.

I don't have a lot of knowledge on Nest as I haven't opted to go that route with other stuff, eg. Smart heating etc. So does their ecosystem require any paid subs etc? Or can I just get some of these and essentially implement them FOC?

Thanks in advance.

Paul.

dam099

paulgrogan.eu wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions folks.

I don't have a lot of knowledge on Nest as I haven't opted to go that route with other stuff, eg. Smart heating etc. So does their ecosystem require any paid subs etc? Or can I just get some of these and essentially implement them FOC?

Thanks in advance.

Paul.

I believe their cameras/doorbell cam require subscriptions for full functionality (not a user).

The Nest Protect Smoke/CO alarm doesn't (at least not currently). I have it and am happy enough with it, handy to be able to use the app to mute it on false alarms and reassuring that it does its self tests.

I dont know that the Home Assistant integration works for new users any more, Google ended the developer program that allowed the necessary access to enable it, existing users are grandfathered in (for now) but you cannot set up a new account.

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/nest/

Clareman

I have Nest Protects around the house, a combination of wired and battery powered, they integrate into the Nest ecosystem very well, they are as sensitve, if not more so, than the old alarms, being able to disable them verbally or through the app is very handy as I'm the only 1 in the house tall enough to reset them. 1 great bonus is the pathlight feature, it's just a small light that turns on if it detects movement when it's dark, with 2 smallies who sometimes wake in the middle of the night it's a great feature cause it's not so bright that it'll dazzle you but bright enough to let you see where you're going.

Grassey

I'd love the nest ones - but don't think I could justify fitting 10 of them at @120 a pop!

s7ryf3925pivug

Grassey wrote: »

I'd love the nest ones - but don't think I could justify fitting 10 of them at @120 a pop!

Why would you fit ten of them? You don't need them in every room. In fact it's probably not ideal to put them in every room when they are radioactive.

Grassey

To replace the 10 existing dumb ones in the house that I want to replace with smart ones...

The tinfoil hat I wear about the place will probably keep me safe though.

Clareman

Some size of a gaff to have 10 in it, originally I had 2 dumb alarms in the house (1 upstairs and 1 downstairs), I picked up 2 wired ones to replace those and 2 battery packs (1 for the kids room and 1 for the playroom), there was a deal on for 3 for 2 on the battery ones so I got 3, I struggled to find a place for the third 1 but I decided to put it in the utility room, big mistake, way too close to the cooker.

ted1

Grassey wrote: »

I'd love the nest ones - but don't think I could justify fitting 10 of them at @120 a pop!

That’s a lot, you can get them cheaper in multipacks.


One of their best features is that if they sense Carbon monoxide they’ll shut off your boiler ( providing you have a nest )

paulgrogan.eu

dam099 wrote: »

I believe their cameras/doorbell cam require subscriptions for full functionality (not a user).

The Nest Protect Smoke/CO alarm doesn't (at least not currently). I have it and am happy enough with it, handy to be able to use the app to mute it on false alarms and reassuring that it does its self tests.

I dont know that the Home Assistant integration works for new users any more, Google ended the developer program that allowed the necessary access to enable it, existing users are grandfathered in (for now) but you cannot set up a new account.

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/nest/

Thanks for this - yeah I've read that since alright which is a real pity.


Also the note below about the CO detection shutting off the boiler is very clever. I'm a Tado user so that wouldn't apply to me, however, if the integration with HA worked, I could probably setup an automation to cover this off anyway.


This is all great stuff guys, looks like the Nest is a popular choice. Hopefully HA will have some success with integration soon.


Paul.

s7ryf3925pivug

ted1 wrote: »

That’s a lot, you can get them cheaper in multipacks.


One of their best features is that if they sense Carbon monoxide they’ll shut off your boiler ( providing you have a nest )

AFAIK new gas boiler installations must include this feature.
We have an additional CO alarm that is compatible with our boiler that does this, and my recollection is that the plumber said this.

s7ryf3925pivug

paulgrogan.eu wrote: »

Thanks for this - yeah I've read that since alright which is a real pity.


Also the note below about the CO detection shutting off the boiler is very clever. I'm a Tado user so that wouldn't apply to me, however, if the integration with HA worked, I could probably setup an automation to cover this off anyway.


This is all great stuff guys, looks like the Nest is a popular choice. Hopefully HA will have some success with integration soon.


Paul.

I have nest cameras. The subscription is to store recordings on the cloud. They changed it recently to a flat subscription instead of per camera. Tenner a month for 10 days 24/7 recording from multiple cameras is ok imo. Alternative is a fiver for event history only. They are just remote peepholes really otherwise. There are obvious advantages to storing recordings off-premises though.

paulgrogan.eu

Jase Elegant Mango wrote: »

I have nest cameras. The subscription is to store recordings on the cloud. They changed it recently to a flat subscription instead of per camera. Tenner a month for 10 days 24/7 recording from multiple cameras is ok imo. Alternative is a fiver for event history only. They are just remote peepholes really otherwise. There are obvious advantages to storing recordings off-premises though.

Thanks Blergh, that's good to know. I don't see myself becoming too heavily invested in Nest, as most of what they offer, I have covered by other products and offerings that suit me better. Glad to know that I could go for the units and remain sub free.


I'm not anti subs, but like to keep things under control too!


Agreed on the cameras though, having recordings available is a must really.



Cheers