Nest has moved beyond intelligent thermostats and into making the rest of your house smarter with the Nest Protect. The intelligent smoke and carbon monoxide alarm promises to end the frustration of random beeps, battery replacements, and other annoyances that dumb smoke alarms plague us with.
In a blog post on Nest's website, founder and CEO Tony Fadell introduced the new intelligent smoke alarm with a story:
"The Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarm was born one night when I lay in bed, sleepless as usual, watching the smoke alarm blink. It blinked and blinked and I realized I had no idea what that meant.
Was it working? Broken? Was it going to wake me up with low-battery chirps? Or go off for no reason? The smoke alarm was a black box painted beige. I trusted it with the safety of my family, but my first instinct was to tear it off the ceiling every time it made a noise. And we've all been there."
Yes we have. Smoke alarms beep when they're not supposed to, unnecessarily alarm us of smoke in the kitchen when we're cooking, and basically bug us until we take the battery out and disable the alarm - which, of course, is very dangerous.
The Nest Protect smoke alarm - from the maker of the Nest intelligent thermostat - can be hushed with a wave and is hooked up to WiFi, so it can message your devices when you need to replace the battery. The internet-connected alarm can tell you where in the house the smoke or CO alarm is going off, through your device or with a Siri-like audible voice, giving you a better idea of how much you need to worry.
And Nest Protect can speak Spanish.
On top of all that, if you have a furnace connected to the Nest Thermostat, the Nest Protect CO alarm will automatically shut down your furnace (one of the chief causes of CO poisoning in homes) if it detects carbon monoxide in the house.
At night, Nest Protect even becomes a pleasant nightlight. Check out the newest house-smartening tool from Nest in the video below.
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