Recommend smoke alarm

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timmmay

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#288484 3-Jul-2021 11:09

I have the Orca OM107H-LS smoke alarm, which is meant to have a ten year battery. I got it because Consumer recommended it. However, they go off when it gets really cold (my office gets cold at night) and the user reviews on Consumer / The Warehouse website says they only last a few years. All of the smoke alarms on the Consumer recommended list have user reviews saying "they only last a few years" or "they go off by themselves" other than the $200 Nest smoke alarms. The Amazon reviews of the Nest alarms are really awful as well.

Are there good quality smoke alarms around? Should we choose models with batteries that can be replaced instead of models with 10 year batteries? I have one smoke alarm wired into our burglar alarm, I wouldn't have a problem with having mains powered smoke alarms that have a battery backup, just costs a bit more to install. Reading reviews on Amazon even the best rated battery powered smoke detectors have issues like battery failure, not always detecting smoke.

I like the Yosmart products including their smoke alarm and have their hub, but I need 6 and at US$100 each that's $850. I'd pay that if I had to, for something really good and durable, but it seems excessive. A nice feature is if one goes off they all go off.

Any recommendations?

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#2738386 3-Jul-2021 12:42

When doning new houses I always recommend ones attached to the burglar alarm for three reasons.

1, When it goes off it sets off the alarm sirens, this will wake you up for sure but also the neighbors with the external siren if no-one is home

2, You never need to replace batteries

3, If your home alarm is monitored, it will also alert them, depending on how you ask them to respond they will send the fire truck.

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#2738395 3-Jul-2021 13:04

Consumer looks to be full of people reporting "false alarms" with their smoke detectors. It really makes me wonder what these people are doing or where they are positioning their smoke alarms.

I notice Fire Angel has a good rating from Consumer and these were one of the main devices used by Fire and Emergency up until a few years ago until they switched because they were so diabolical, and I know on station there was a box of probably 50 that had all been swapped out because of the diabolical battery life which is hopefully resolved now.

At home we have Family Shield 10yr models and have never had a single false alarm or issue in the 3 years or so since I installed them. I did test them with smoke test (it's a CRC product in a can but there are similar things out there from other brands) last year.

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#2738408 3-Jul-2021 13:55

Even mains powered alarms usually have backup batteries. Do these get tested and does the alarm signal flat 9v?

I have an Arma Micro NV100H-M that runs on a replaceable CR123a lithium. That is in a room that gets cold enough to make humans complain and so far there's not been any alarms.

timmmay

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#2738416 3-Jul-2021 14:33

@Daynger I think wired in would make sense. Our Bosch alarm has one in the hallway and two channels free, which is good, but I'd really want three or four. I might talk to the alarm company. I don't have it monitored any more, wasn't worth the money for us.

@Bung the Arms is the same as the Orca, just a different name on it, but different power source.

Otherwise I guess I get whatever brand Consumer says is good but a model with a removable battery.

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#2738418 3-Jul-2021 14:57

The Arma Micro appears to be the same as the Orca Micro OM100H-M, not the Orca model you have.

neb

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#2738420 3-Jul-2021 15:08

timmmay:
Otherwise I guess I get whatever brand Consumer says is good but a model with a removable battery.

Yup, get one with a 9V replaceable and drop in a "9V" LiIon rechargeable that you recharge once a year when you do your alarm test. Never had any problems with those.

The problem with the "10-year" batteries is that just because a lithium battery can sit on a shelf for ten years and/or power some device with a 0.5uA current draw doesn't mean it'll work OK in an alarm which doesn't fulfil either of those conditions. It seems there are a pile of alarms where someone who doesn't really understand the requirements looked at a data sheet, saw "10 year life", and thought "bewdy, we'll stick 'em in a smoke alarm and sell 'em at a premium as ten-year alarms".

Just like the cretins who decided that MOVs would make a fine and dandy "surge protection" mechanism, i.e. a means to charge a premium for a cheap crappy power board.

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timmmay

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#2738485 3-Jul-2021 16:46

Bung: The Arma Micro appears to be the same as the Orca Micro OM100H-M, not the Orca model you have.

Yeah different models, but they appear to be the same otherwise.

neb: Yup, get one with a 9V replaceable and drop in a "9V" LiIon rechargeable that you recharge once a year when you do your alarm test. Never had any problems with those. The problem with the "10-year" batteries is that just because a lithium battery can sit on a shelf for ten years and/or power some device with a 0.5uA current draw doesn't mean it'll work OK in an alarm which doesn't fulfil either of those conditions. It seems there are a pile of alarms where someone who doesn't really understand the requirements looked at a data sheet, saw "10 year life", and thought "bewdy, we'll stick 'em in a smoke alarm and sell 'em at a premium as ten-year alarms". Just like the cretins who decided that MOVs would make a fine and dandy "surge protection" mechanism, i.e. a means to charge a premium for a cheap crappy power board.

Can you link to a rechargeable 9V LiIon battery? I can find NiMH, or Lithium not rechargeable. 9V Lithium is probably good enough.

I need to find a reliable brand of smoke alarm that doesn't go off when it gets cold. Maybe the one I returned had the battery running down already, not sure if it was 1 year or 3 years old, I bought two lots. I'll look at getting permanent ones attached to the burglar alarm for the two main bedrooms but will have to use battery for the others as not enough channels open on the alarm panel.

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#2738495 3-Jul-2021 17:10

I have the older Cavius 5yr wireless detectors, they have lithium CR2 batteries. The one in the garage and rumpus room have given no issues due to temperature.

The rumpus regularly gets to 7 degrees in winter, the garage must get colder but I've never checked how cold.

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#2738496 3-Jul-2021 17:14

Nest Protect does a wired version with internal battery backup. That has to be tempting vs managing and maintaining batteries. The internal test routines eliminate any low battery uncertainty for both versions.

neb

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#2738501 3-Jul-2021 17:44

timmmay:
Can you link to a rechargeable 9V LiIon battery? I can find NiMH, or Lithium not rechargeable. 9V Lithium is probably good enough.

There's lots, although you have to watch out for the usual dodgy Chinese ones. I've got EBLs, or these if you want a charger for them too. However those links are showing recent Amazon braindamage where "unable to ship to your area" is reported as "currently unavailable", I'd forgotten about the LiIon-unshippability problem.

I don't know if straight lithium is the same, with the rechargeables you're effectively getting a fresh battery every 12 months while with straight lithium you're getting a more and more run-down battery every year.

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#2738502 3-Jul-2021 17:51

I have 2 year old Cavius 10 yr alarms and one went off in the cold last week.

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#2738503 3-Jul-2021 17:55

Really recommend Cavius. You can get them as stand alone smoke alarms, or as wirelessly interconnected ones.

Cavius has a 230V mains powered smoke alarm with wireless connectivity which can be used together with their battery powered wireless smoke detectors.

As to problems with false alarms and low temperatures: The smoke detector you want is a photoelectric smoke alarm. They are great at picking up all kinds of smoke, and usually have a low chance of false alarms. BUT they can give you false alarms when you have situations where the temperature drops and the moisture in the air condenses. If this happens inside of the detection chamber, it will be registered as smoke and the alarm will go off.

So we always have more people contacting us about false alarms in spring and autumn in Norway, or when someone have installed them in their unheated garage and they get condensation there.

There is really no way to avoid those kinds of false alarms when you have a smoke alarm in an unheated room and the room quickly goes from being warm and then dropping below 15 degrees.

PS: Make sure that any smoke detector you choose for an alarm system is actually certified as an actual smoke detector (check its certifications). There are lots of really low quality and uncertified smoke alarms available for alarm systems.

Disclaimer: I am part owner of the Nordic distributor of Cavius. But I have no ties with the NZ distributor.

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timmmay

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#2738544 3-Jul-2021 21:22

Thanks @jarledb that's really interesting about the false alarms in cold weather. So the alarm I returned wasn't faulty, it was just the environment. The room it was in dropped from around 22 degrees at night to 10 degrees in the morning. My wife said "I could hear a beeping noise earlier, I wondered what it was", that was from the office which has the laundry attached. That tells me having a wireless link would be valuable.

The Cavius alarms look good. The wired ones at $75 would probably be a good bet, compared with the 10 year battery versions for $105 that might only last 5 years. Any idea how long the mains ones will last? Do they need a transformer sitting in the roof space? That would probably fail before the alarms themselves. Three bedrooms, lounge, kitchen, office, laundry, that's $700 plus an electrician... but if it prevents us dying in a fire that would be a bargain.

I should probably put something in the laundry, which gets very cold at night as it's not heated all the time. I have a fan heater that comes on in the morning to warm the area up and it's small so it warms up very quickly. Would you put a smoke alarm in there or a heat alarm? I would need wireless as we'd never hear it through four doors to the bedrooms.

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#2738570 3-Jul-2021 22:07

timmmay:
Thanks @jarledb that's really interesting about the false alarms in cold weather. So the alarm I returned wasn't faulty, it was just the environment. The room it was in dropped from around 22 degrees at night to 10 degrees in the morning. My wife said "I could hear a beeping noise earlier, I wondered what it was", that was from the office which has the laundry attached. That tells me having a wireless link would be valuable.

Beeping is not the same as a false alarm. 10 degrees also isn't that low. In other applications CR123As have been used below -40. Maybe it's similar to the problem Cavius had with batteries reported as low volt when they were ok. Many cameras seem to throw a hissy fit and shut down when there's still lots of life left in the batteries.

timmmay

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#2738571 3-Jul-2021 22:11

Bung: Beeping is not the same as a false alarm. 10 degrees also isn't that low. In other applications CR123As have been used below -40. Maybe it's similar to the problem Cavius had with batteries reported as low volt when they were ok. Many cameras seem to throw a hissy fit and shut down when there's still lots of life left in the batteries.

My wife woke me up and told me something was beeping, I walked into the office and the smoke alarm was going off when there was no smoke. I'd call that a false alarm :)

It was colder in the office than usual. Usually the heater comes on during free hour of power, but I didn't have that going today. 10 degrees is pretty cold for our house, most of the rooms stay around 22 degrees :)

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