Smart Smoke Alarms

Should you get them?

With more and more "smart" smoke alarms being offered by manufacturers, we get a lot of questions about whether people should get them. We are going to take a short tour of smart smoke alarms and then give our thoughts about whether you should get them, or not...

What Is a Smart Smoke Alarm?

Most of the big-name smoke alarm manufacturers as well as other smart home vendors now make what we would consider "smart" smoke alarms. The key feature, in our opinion, that makes a smoke alarm smart is connectivity to the internet, and thus to your home automation system, phone, or other devices.

If you simply want to be notified on your phone if an alarm goes off while you are away, most of the home assistants, Google, Amazon, and Apple all have a feature (some require a monthly fee) that will listen for an alarm and send you an alert.

Are They Better?

Some of the smart alarms come with advanced sensors that can detect both smoldering and fast flaming fires. We always prefer alarms that can sense both types of fires, but there are alarms that are far less expensive that test just well as some of the best smart alarms.

Many smart alarms come with all kinds of additional features such as carbon monoxide sensors, temperature, and humidity sensors. If you need these features and don't have them elsewhere, a smart smoke alarm might make sense.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is there are other features we would prioritize over "smart" features. How well a smoke alarm notifies you in case of fire is the primary goal of a smoke alarm. 

We would prioritize having all your alarms interconnected so they all alert at the same time over smart features. We would also prioritize having sensors for both smoldering and flaming fires over having smart features. We prioritize hard-wired smoke alarms over battery only alarms with smart features. You should also, for interconnectivity reasons, probably have all of your smoke alarms be similar so they can all alert at the same time. For this reason, just getting a few smart alarms might actually be a bad idea, unless you are just adding them to existing alarms. From a purely safety standpoint it's probably more important to replace and/or maintain your existing alarms than it is to get a few smart alarms.

If you can get smart alarms that meet all of the above criteria, and you really want the smart features, and you are willing pay a premium, and all your alarms can talk to each other, we say go for it. Just make sure you understand what you are getting.

Last Updated: 11/5/2023