Looking at the First Alert model ZCOMBO & ZSMOKE that others have been getting and the one thing keeping me from pulling the trigger is the fact that they’re battery powered only. For most this is fine but we have all of ours hardwired so when one goes off they all go off and additionally our city’s code requires an external strobe light be connected as well. As goofy as that sounds I really like the idea of having an external visual indicator for fire dept & neighbors that our smoke detectors are alerting. I don’t want to give that up but really want Z-Wave alarms for the other advantages. I guess I could figure out a way to wire our strobe to a Z-Wave controller to have it strobe but the simplest solution would be a hard-wire & battery backup Z-Wave smoke detector. I’d like CO2 detection as well but this isn’t a deal breaker.
As of right now all I can find are battery powered and no hard-wired options w/Z-Wave. Has anyone seen anything else or heard of anything on the horizon?
[quote=“Ostrichsak, post:1, topic:185124”]Looking at the First Alert model ZCOMBO & ZSMOKE that others have been getting and the one thing keeping me from pulling the trigger is the fact that they’re battery powered only. For most this is fine but we have all of ours hardwired so when one goes off they all go off and additionally our city’s code requires an external strobe light be connected as well. As goofy as that sounds I really like the idea of having an external visual indicator for fire dept & neighbors that our smoke detectors are alerting. I don’t want to give that up but really want Z-Wave alarms for the other advantages. I guess I could figure out a way to wire our strobe to a Z-Wave controller to have it strobe but the simplest solution would be a hard-wire & battery backup Z-Wave smoke detector. I’d like CO2 detection as well but this isn’t a deal breaker.
As of right now all I can find are battery powered and no hard-wired options w/Z-Wave. Has anyone seen anything else or heard of anything on the horizon?
Thanks for the input.[/quote]
Non exists or is planning on being made that I know of but why change all your smokes when you can intergrate your existing smokes to z-wave with a simple http://www.amazon.com/Kidde-SM120X-Detector-Hardwired-I-Combo/dp/B001AYERC2 (its cheaper other places, shop around) and a wireless z-wave door contact sensor. Search the forums this has been discussed many times.
[quote=“integlikewhoa, post:2, topic:185124”][quote=“Ostrichsak, post:1, topic:185124”]Looking at the First Alert model ZCOMBO & ZSMOKE that others have been getting and the one thing keeping me from pulling the trigger is the fact that they’re battery powered only. For most this is fine but we have all of ours hardwired so when one goes off they all go off and additionally our city’s code requires an external strobe light be connected as well. As goofy as that sounds I really like the idea of having an external visual indicator for fire dept & neighbors that our smoke detectors are alerting. I don’t want to give that up but really want Z-Wave alarms for the other advantages. I guess I could figure out a way to wire our strobe to a Z-Wave controller to have it strobe but the simplest solution would be a hard-wire & battery backup Z-Wave smoke detector. I’d like CO2 detection as well but this isn’t a deal breaker.
As of right now all I can find are battery powered and no hard-wired options w/Z-Wave. Has anyone seen anything else or heard of anything on the horizon?
Thanks for the input.[/quote]
Non exists or is planning on being made that I know of but why change all your smokes when you can intergrate your existing smokes to z-wave with a simple http://www.amazon.com/Kidde-SM120X-Detector-Hardwired-I-Combo/dp/B001AYERC2 (its cheaper other places, shop around) and a wireless z-wave door contact sensor. Search the forums this has been discussed many times.[/quote]
This item is new to me so I’ll have to research it to see if it will do what I need it to do to fit my needs.
I looked into it briefly and I’m not sure this will fit my needs. My dogs are terrified of the smoke detectors. If one even chirps on TV they lose their minds. My hope is that someday I will have an option for a Z-Wave smoke detector so I can include it in scenes and everything that comes with that functionality but also so I can monitor battery life. I want to be able to change out batteries BEFORE they chirp a low-battery warning as that is something that can absolutely ruin a night of sleep around here. These don’t even seem to chirp at noon or 2:00pm instead it’s always between the hours of 1:00-4:00am it seems. When it happens it wakes the dogs up and pretty much puts the entire household on edge for the next hour or so and getting back to sleep rarely happens cleanly. I know this is a long blurb that most who read won’t care about but I’m not sure why all of these Z-Wave detectors are all battery powered none are what appears to be the standard smoke detector power configuration which is hardwired to panel power with a battery back-up. I’m not sure why this seems like such an unusual request when it’s the industry standard w/o Z-Wave. That just seems odd to me.
Search the forums it been posted several times. Basically what it does it wires inline with your current high voltage smokes. Same as if you were to add another smoke. When any of your smokes trip it sends power down the line to all of them and set them off.
This is a relay that has high voltage on one side and the other side can be wired to anything. Alarm panel or in your case a z-wave door input that has 2 wired inputs. The low voltage side will open and close the circuit which will trip and untrip that z-wave sensor that reports to VERA.
People have went further (which I don’t recommend) and even used a Mimolite or similer to not only see when the smokes are going on and off but to trip the relay manually using vera and force the smokes to go off say for a bugler alarm. Problem is Fire alarm and Intrusion alarm are required to sound different. Don’t want some one running in your house to save you from a fire when really a bugler broke in.
Anyways the really is only used in parallel and smokes don’t require it to function on their own same if one smoke in your house quits working the rest still work. So adding this 10.00 relay and a 25-30.00 z-wave input shouldn’t cause you any problems after install.
Disadvantage would be you don’t know which smoke tripped and you’ll only get an input for any.
This was originally designed to do the same thing with an alarm panel in the house. Provide and open and closed contact input to a wired alarm panel so it can monitor the hardwired smokes already in the house.
I looked into it briefly and I’m not sure this will fit my needs. My dogs are terrified of the smoke detectors. If one even chirps on TV they lose their minds. My hope is that someday I will have an option for a Z-Wave smoke detector so I can include it in scenes and everything that comes with that functionality but also so I can monitor battery life. I want to be able to change out batteries BEFORE they chirp a low-battery warning as that is something that can absolutely ruin a night of sleep around here. These don’t even seem to chirp at noon or 2:00pm instead it’s always between the hours of 1:00-4:00am it seems. When it happens it wakes the dogs up and pretty much puts the entire household on edge for the next hour or so and getting back to sleep rarely happens cleanly. I know this is a long blurb that most who read won’t care about but I’m not sure why all of these Z-Wave detectors are all battery powered none are what appears to be the standard smoke detector power configuration which is hardwired to panel power with a battery back-up. I’m not sure why this seems like such an unusual request when it’s the industry standard w/o Z-Wave. That just seems odd to me.[/quote]
I’m not sure your problem.
Do you have hardwired smokes already?
Do they chirp already?
If they do not then my solution will cause no problems. If your current hardwired smokes chirp then this will NOT fix your problem.
Search the forums it been posted several times. Basically what it does it wires inline with your current high voltage smokes. Same as if you were to add another smoke. When any of your smokes trip it sends power down the line to all of them and set them off.
This is a relay that has high voltage on one side and the other side can be wired to anything. Alarm panel or in your case a z-wave door input that has 2 wired inputs. The low voltage side will open and close the circuit which will trip and untrip that z-wave sensor that reports to VERA.
People have went further (which I don’t recommend) and even used a Mimolite or similer to not only see when the smokes are going on and off but to trip the relay manually using vera and force the smokes to go off say for a bugler alarm. Problem is Fire alarm and Intrusion alarm are required to sound different. Don’t want some one running in your house to save you from a fire when really a bugler broke in.
Anyways the really is only used in parallel and smokes don’t require it to function on their own same if one smoke in your house quits working the rest still work. So adding this 10.00 relay and a 25-30.00 z-wave input shouldn’t cause you any problems after install.
Disadvantage would be you don’t know which smoke tripped and you’ll only get an input for any.
This was originally designed to do the same thing with an alarm panel in the house. Provide and open and closed contact input to a wired alarm panel so it can monitor the hardwired smokes already in the house.[/quote]
Yeah, I get now what it does and it would solve one aspect of wanting to introduce Z-Wave into my smoke detector system in that I could include the alerts in scenes and receive remote notification and such.
The aspect it doesn’t solve is one of the big motivating factors of this project which is to be able to monitor ALL of my smoke detectors from a single location to know what their current battery back-up life is. This gives me a powerful tool (for us) to know when a detector’s battery needs changed BEFORE it ever even chirps. As I stated, this is a VERY unsettling occurrence in our household due to 1) our dogs fear of them and 2) the fact that they always seem to go off in the early hours of the morning serving to ruin a night’s sleep. In a perfect world I have have a combo smoke/O2 detector (smoke is really all we need to replace what we have now) that is not only hard wired but with a battery back-up as well as Z-Wave that allows me to monitor alerts as well as battery life like our other battery powered Z-Wave devices. I haven’t found it yet and I assume it doesn’t exist but I’m still just not sure why there are several options but not fit what is the current standard for power on smoke detectors.
I looked into it briefly and I’m not sure this will fit my needs. My dogs are terrified of the smoke detectors. If one even chirps on TV they lose their minds. My hope is that someday I will have an option for a Z-Wave smoke detector so I can include it in scenes and everything that comes with that functionality but also so I can monitor battery life. I want to be able to change out batteries BEFORE they chirp a low-battery warning as that is something that can absolutely ruin a night of sleep around here. These don’t even seem to chirp at noon or 2:00pm instead it’s always between the hours of 1:00-4:00am it seems. When it happens it wakes the dogs up and pretty much puts the entire household on edge for the next hour or so and getting back to sleep rarely happens cleanly. I know this is a long blurb that most who read won’t care about but I’m not sure why all of these Z-Wave detectors are all battery powered none are what appears to be the standard smoke detector power configuration which is hardwired to panel power with a battery back-up. I’m not sure why this seems like such an unusual request when it’s the industry standard w/o Z-Wave. That just seems odd to me.[/quote]
I’m not sure your problem.
Do you have hardwired smokes already?
Do they chirp already?
If they do not then my solution will cause no problems. If your current hardwired smokes chirp then this will NOT fix your problem.[/quote]
Yes we have smokes already and they chirp when smoke is detected or when a battery is low. That last part is our primary problem. I understand how adding that relay to the line and a Z-Wave sensor can add functionality we don’t currently have but it still doesn’t solve our other issue. A hardwired smoke detector w/battery back-up & Z-Wave would.
Search the forums it been posted several times. Basically what it does it wires inline with your current high voltage smokes. Same as if you were to add another smoke. When any of your smokes trip it sends power down the line to all of them and set them off.
This is a relay that has high voltage on one side and the other side can be wired to anything. Alarm panel or in your case a z-wave door input that has 2 wired inputs. The low voltage side will open and close the circuit which will trip and untrip that z-wave sensor that reports to VERA.
People have went further (which I don’t recommend) and even used a Mimolite or similer to not only see when the smokes are going on and off but to trip the relay manually using vera and force the smokes to go off say for a bugler alarm. Problem is Fire alarm and Intrusion alarm are required to sound different. Don’t want some one running in your house to save you from a fire when really a bugler broke in.
Anyways the really is only used in parallel and smokes don’t require it to function on their own same if one smoke in your house quits working the rest still work. So adding this 10.00 relay and a 25-30.00 z-wave input shouldn’t cause you any problems after install.
Disadvantage would be you don’t know which smoke tripped and you’ll only get an input for any.
This was originally designed to do the same thing with an alarm panel in the house. Provide and open and closed contact input to a wired alarm panel so it can monitor the hardwired smokes already in the house.[/quote]
Yeah, I get now what it does and it would solve one aspect of wanting to introduce Z-Wave into my smoke detector system in that I could include the alerts in scenes and receive remote notification and such.
The aspect it doesn’t solve is one of the big motivating factors of this project which is to be able to monitor ALL of my smoke detectors from a single location to know what their current battery back-up life is. This gives me a powerful tool (for us) to know when a detector’s battery needs changed BEFORE it ever even chirps. As I stated, this is a VERY unsettling occurrence in our household due to 1) our dogs fear of them and 2) the fact that they always seem to go off in the early hours of the morning serving to ruin a night’s sleep. In a perfect world I have have a combo smoke/O2 detector (smoke is really all we need to replace what we have now) that is not only hard wired but with a battery back-up as well as Z-Wave that allows me to monitor alerts as well as battery life like our other battery powered Z-Wave devices. I haven’t found it yet and I assume it doesn’t exist but I’m still just not sure why there are several options but not fit what is the current standard for power on smoke detectors.[/quote]
Ok I got it, your hardwired ones have battery also and that’s the beep your concerned with.
Well yes your out of luck I don’t think any hardwired smokes, z-wave or wifi or zgibee even exist.
How about you have Vera send you an alert every year to change all the batteries out in the smokes?[/quote]
It’s not a scheduling thing really. Some of our smokes will go years and years (5+) w/o needing a new battery so I’d rather not drop $30 annually changing batteries that don’t need changed. Over the same five years that $150 we could have put towards something else. It’s also not that easy of a task and requires ‘testing’ them to reset them when you replace a battery which in and of itself is traumatic to the dogs anyway. I think what we need to satisfy all of our needs ALMOST exists but not quite. I guess we just have to keep waiting and doing it a little bit longer until the manufacturers of these Z-Wave detectors offer versions that have the same power features as their other traditional smoke detectors.
I have 3 GSD and about 6 battery smoke detectors and 2 CO2 ones around the house. All running 9V battery. Which gets replaced yearly.
I just let the dogs out in the yard and take my trusty step ladder and box of 9V’s around the house. Replacing each battery and testing each unit. Trauma for my 4 legged kids is non-existant as they are happily playing in the yard.
As it us, Fla law changed as on 1/1/2015. Only sealed 10 year Lithium battery detectors can be sold now.
[quote=“integlikewhoa, post:13, topic:185124”]So lets say you have 10 smoke detectors and each one takes a 9v battery. And we not putting a cheap battery. We are going to put a Lithium 9v battery. That cost 6.00 http://www.frys.com/product/6537013?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
That’s 60.00 every 5 years to stop the beeping. (probley change them at half that to make sure)
Lets say the z-combos are the same price as the wired z-wave ones… 40.00 each (and still take a battery that needs to be replaced).
10 of them that’s 400.00 investment and you still have batteries. 60.00 every 5 years gets you 35.5 years worth of batteries for 400.00
Hate to say it as I have pets but whats the life expectancy? Spend the 60.00 for 10 batteries and you’ll probley past that point.[/quote]
The problem is that we recently rescued another dog and she’s already afraid of the smoke detectors thanks to the first dog teaching her to fear them. Theoretically this is something that could go on for as long as we have dogs.
We all have our reasoning for wanting Z-Wave products. Not sure why people are judging my reasoning because they don’t share them.
[quote=“BOFH”]I have 3 GSD and about 6 battery smoke detectors and 2 CO2 ones around the house. All running 9V battery. Which gets replaced yearly.
I just let the dogs out in the yard and take my trusty step ladder and box of 9V’s around the house. Replacing each battery and testing each unit. Trauma for my 4 legged kids is non-existant as they are happily playing in the yard.
As it us, Fla law changed as on 1/1/2015. Only sealed 10 year Lithium battery detectors can be sold now.
I’m hoping that’s not going to prevent ZCOMBO and ZSMOKE units from being sold.[/quote]
I would be happy to send or bring you a care package of smoke detectors from up north if need be. I’m sure that even if the local stores can’t sell them, getting them shipped in is probably not an issue. Too bad people can’t simply be relied upon to do a simple battery replacement once a year. Makes me wonder how safe their car is sharing the road with me.
Thanks for the kind offer. Much appreciated. I just checked and Lowes still carries the ZCOMBO locally. Unfortunately my 10 year old female GSD had to have a mass removed from one of her nipples this morning which took a hefty toll on my budget. But she’s worth every penny to me. So my intended ZCOMBO purchase has been postponed as part of the austerity measures. Now I gotta find her a pink ribbon tag for her collar as she can be considered a ‘breast cancer survivor’.
But yeah, we have idiots here that remove the 9V battery from the smoke detector to put it in something else. It unfortunately is a common occurrence in some communities as found by the FD after a fire… I’m sure Florida is not the only State where this happens but it is one State that is trying to address it. As smoke detectors have a finite lifespan, having to replace them every 10 years is not a bad idea.
Drawing a direct correlation between my desire to have a hard wired smoke detector w/battery backup with my vehicles or ANYTHING else I own is ignorant at best and completely unnecessary for this thread.
Drawing a direct correlation between my desire to have a hard wired smoke detector w/battery backup with my vehicles or ANYTHING else I own is ignorant at best and completely unnecessary for this thread.[/quote]
To clarify my response had NOTHING to do with being against you. Nothing. My response was completed in reference to Florida needing to REQUIRE smoke detectors to have a 10 year lifespan battery permanently installed. This is a good idea because people can’t be trusted to care for their families life over a 1.99 Duracell that last a year. The correlation however is that if these folks can’t undertake a simple, effective, low cost lifesaving action, or they actually remove the battery to use in something else. I can imagine that they skimp or shortcut many other aspects of their lives. There is a direct provable correlation between peoples other actions and car maintenance. Hence why lower credit scores, no college education net you higher auto insurance rates. Can’t manage money, not educated, probably don’t maintain your car either. Proven. The problem is that apartment renter joe can remove a battery that the apartment management will replace for FREE. Unfortunately apartment renter joe is not the candidate for purchasing a 10 year lifespan smoke. Apartment renters don’t buy smoke detectors. Renters don’t buy smoke detectors, landlords do. Low income apartments, rentals and mobile homes are the places where most " inoperable smoke detector fatalities are" not average single family homes. The good side of this law means that apartment renters at least can’t steal the batteries anymore when the landlord installs smokes. Source: My family includes property managers currently overseeing over 2200 rental units. Have heard " it was beeping, so we took it down a few months ago, or we needed a battery for something else - many times) Smoke detector repair or replacement is a top priority in apartment complexes.
I too would like a hard wired interconnect with battery backup zwave smoke.
TL;dr you should read the response replied to before assuming. Good day sir: tips hat
Then why haven’t you just said this rather than trying to judge me and convince me how I should do things? Who cares WHY I want what I want… I just want it. I have no idea why this got into the topic of why it is I want what I want anyway. It seems to me that a simple ‘I’m not aware of one that is currently available but I too would like to see something like this come to market’ would have sufficed.
Just because you quoted someone doesn’t mean you weren’t taking shots at someone else. If you didn’t mean it towards me & it adds nothing to the topic of this thread then maybe it shouldn’t have been brought up at all.
Now I gotta find her a pink ribbon tag for her collar as she can be considered a ‘breast cancer survivor’.