safe&sound
Not just smart, but aware – how to equip your home with devices that can detect what you can't…
Self-preservation is a universal core instinct of every living organism on the planet, from the top of the intellectual tree down to singlecelled bacteria. If you’re building yourself a smart home, that’s something you should absolutely have in mind. A smart home which doesn’t have the sense to understand when there’s something wrong with your living space – is, at least within this somewhat strained analogy, dumber than an amoeba.
Such sensing doesn’t even have to be an extra – it could be the core feature of your smart home. You can completely sidestep things like smart assistants or fancy lighting if they’re not your sort of thing, and just use the ever-growing litany of tools available to invisibly make your home safer. And we’re not just talking about security here; that’s a topic (mostly) for another day. What about fire, flood, wind, acts of God – or even acts of dog? What about those invisible dangers you can’t possibly see?
Smart smoke detectors are, naturally, first on the list in terms of immediate priority. The Nest Protect (£109) is probably the most prominent of these, and it’s very clever. Like many smoke alarms, it networks itself with others in your home, meaning an alert from one is passed top-to-bottom, alerting those in all rooms that you’ve managed to burn the toast. It does not, though, go hell-for-leather in an instant, preferring instead to actually tell you what the problem is before sounding a loud alarm; it’s sensible enough to know the difference between charred toast and a blazing inferno – and you can hush it with your voice using
Google Assistant.
Up in the air
The great benefit a smart smoke alarm has over its dumb brethren, even radio-interlinked alarms like those from Kidde and FireAngel, is distance. Knowing there’s a problem when you’re not at home is priceless – beyond the odd extra function, like Nest’s soft illuminating night light feature, that’s why you’re paying such a premium for a smart device. Nest isn’t the only example out there: you can find Z-Waveequipped smoke alarms from companies like Fibero and Popp, which can be linked with a suitable hub. Don't be tempted, though, to import something like First Alert's Onelink Safe & Sound (despite the fact that its built-in Alexa speaker is cool) as the alarm pattern isn't certified for our shores.
Be careful, though, with the way you choose to communicate with something like a smoke alarm. Setting up a custom routine with a Z-Wave device hooked into an online service might seem tempting for tech experimenters but IFTTT and the like can be unreliable and slow. Getting the alert three minutes after it’s happened will do more harm than good, particularly if you’re expecting immediacy. Stick with something on a solid platform, use that platform, and be aware that nothing is guaranteed.
Smoke is a rather obvious danger, but some airborne contaminants really are not. Every home needs a carbon monoxide alarm, a job that’s a secondary task for many smart devices (the Nest Protect can pull it off, for instance) – but how often do you see non-smart devices detecting things like CO2 levels, mould, and other airborne contaminants?