Just my luck, on the day I was going post my review of the Nest Protect Smoke and Carbon Monoxide detector, the company . Apparently their gimmicky wave feature doesn't work right so they're halting new sales and deactivating the feature on already installed units through a wifi software update. Safety is so annoying. [Update, July 2014: Woohoo! They're back on the shelves and $20 cheaper! You can order one with free shipping from Amazon: .  If you purchased the Nest Protect for $129, you are eligible for a credit of $33 per device. You can get your ]. I decided to research the Nest Protect because I wasn't satisfied with the darling reviews from the technorati. Instead of examining practical safety aspects (i.e. whether it uses an ionization or photoelectric sensor), they declared it a thing of beauty and fawned over superfluous extras like the night light ( favorite feature). C'mon night lights are a dime a dozen and if my goal was beauty, I'd hang an  chandelier or the  ceiling fan, not a hipster smoke detector that looks like a giant .

For the record, I was going to recommend including the Nest Protect as part of your home's protection system but advise against replacing all your detectors with them (we put one on each floor). I found the wave feature to be useless and unnecessary, so no big deal that it's not enabled on our detectors anymore. In my opinion Nest Protect's killer app is it's ability to communicate — it tells you when the battery is low, if the alarm isn't working, and if the smoke detector is going off while you're out to dinner and the baby is home with the sitter. This kind of peace of mind is priceless. It's a shame that the company advertised the Wave feature so heavily that now they have to spend months finding a way to fix it. I still think they have a great product (which currently sells on for an even larger premium). Their main tagline is "Safety doesn't have to be annoying." Nest, you had me at Safety. You had me at Safety. To me, the biggest tragedy of the Nest Protect marketing campaign is that they had opportunity to educate consumers about how smoke detectors work and how to be safe without sacrificing your sanity.

It has nothing to do with being able to silence your detector with a wave. You don't have to swing a towel at the Nest Protect because it uses a photoelectric sensor, which makes it less prone to nuisance activations and much safer. Most nuisance alarms are caused by Ionization sensors There are two types of smoke detectors—Ionization and Photoelectric. About 90% of homes have ionization sensor detectors, they are cheaper and better at sensing hot flaming/fast-moving fires (i.e. cooking fires and fires fueled by paper or flammable liquids). About 5% of homes have photoelectric sensor alarms, which are faster at detecting slow smoldering fires (i.e. smoking, electrical or heater-related fires). If you need help determining what type of detector you have, this post has a great explanation: IONIZATION VS. The trouble with ionization sensors is they often get triggered when you cook, burn toast or shower. After one or two unwanted alarms, they invariably wind up in the junk drawer, making them the least safe kind of detector that you can have.

According to the National Fire Protection Agency nearly two-thirds of US home fire deaths happen in homes without a working smoke alarm—usually because the batteries are dead or they've been deliberately disabled. One Alaskan Public Housing study Combo/Dual Sensor alarms are also prone to nuisance tripping Because you cannot predict the type of fire you may have, fire officials recommend that you have both ionization and photoelectric technologies in your home. waterford ardmore 12 arm chandelierCombination or "dual sensor" alarms which include both ionization and photoelectric technologies in one device are often touted as the best way to protect your home, however they get mixed reviews from people in the field.mason jar chandelier from footloose Electricians, home inspectors, as well as our city's fire marshal told me that combo alarms (which were required by the California Fire Code when we built our house) are prone to nuisance alarms. chandelier foire fouille

Some say they're too sensitive to moving air or dust. Others say they have a high failure rate because they are cheaply manufactured in order to be cost competitive with single unit devices. Some experts also argue that they are unreliable because there's no industry or UL standard for dual/multi sensor alarms. Regardless of the reason, the experts I spoke to all recommended replacing dual unit devices with single detector ones if they are causing nuisance alarms. So far all of our false alarms have been caused by the Kidde combo photoelectric/carbon monoxide alarms, so we can't blame an ionization sensor. Before going Office Space on your detectors, try these tips... Tips for preventing nuisance alarms 1. Switch to a photoelectric only smoke detector. 2. Locate smoke detectors at least 20 feet from the sources of combustion particles (cooking appliances, furnace, water heater, space heater). Avoid placing alarms in air streams near kitchens since currents can draw cooking smoke into a detector's sensing chamber.

Within 20 feet of a kitchen, use photoelectric only alarms. Why every home should have a photoelectric smoke detector Nuisance alarms are not the only reason to install a photoelectric alarm. The number one reason to have a photoelectric smoke detector is safety. Smoldering fires, like those started from overloaded power strips, can fill a home with toxic gases for minutes, or even hours before there are enough flames to trigger an ionization alarm. Friends of mine were recently in trapped by a fire on the 20th floor of their apartment building when a smoldering fire broke out two doors down. Their ionization smoke detectors never sounded despite the fact that hot, black smoke filled the upper half of the 42-story complex, killing one and seriously injuring another. if you only have one kind of smoke detector in your home, make it a photoelectricThis mama bear has both types in her home, just to be safe. For maximum protection, install smoke alarms inside every bedroom, outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home, including the basement (replace units every 10 years).