I am really just getting started moving from Wink to Hubitat. I also physically moved and need to buy smoke detectors. The house is wired for smoke detectors, but I cannot seem to find any wired z-wave or zigbee smoke detectors. They all seem to be battery operated. Anybody know of any?
There really isn't any. First-alert makes a battery z-wave one. The only real ones are nest. (I have 7) What I've done is what everyone else has done. Use an eco-link firefighter next to them. They can detect smoke or co, also have battery, temp, and tamper attributes. These work well with pretty much any unit. They are z-wave and natively supported.
I'm planning on going for a dumb wired interconnect with a relay which allows interfacing to automation. My main use case is to release the fire doors when the alarm sounds as well as when we go to bed at night, are out etc. However, this set up can also be used to trigger notifications and to test the alarm. It won't allow identification of which unit has triggered the alarm in a real scenario.
I actually haven't decided on all the automations yet. I just figured I have it hard wired so why deal with batteries. I also figured it zwave or zigbee then I could do whatever I want later. I had nest at the old place and I am kind of tired with how locked down it is now.
I have 11 detectors in my house. I am simply never going to pay $1100+ for Nest Protect when traditional hardwired plus a relay or ecolink firefighter will get the job done for $300-ish.
I had 7 Nest Protect v2 in my last house, and didn't find them any better at detection or false alarms than any of the traditional detectors (actually quite the opposite, but my experience seems to be the exception not the norm when it comes to Nest Protect false alarms.) 🤷
I second or third the recommendation of going with an EcoLink FireFighter. Get the z-wave version. There are reported issues with the zigbee version. I have four interlinked smoke/co detectors, and the firefighter made it easy to bring them into Hubitat.
Do the EcoLink's work with the "talking" detectors. I assume so when the actual alarm goes off. I used to use IFTTT with Nest to have different levels of warning based on the Warning vs actual alarm. That would be out I assume.
Hi Mike, The only ones are the discontinued Halo Zigbee Alarms. Sometimes available on E-bay. They work well and even talk, and act as zigbee repeaters. The HALO+ has a weather radio built in(only adjustable on ST). I set mine on ST for the WWB, then moved to HE. Got a tornado alert last week announced, scared the heck out of the wife & girls. And they never need batteries, built in lithium backup( 18650 type cell)
Too bad they are no longer made.
I just snagged one Halo+ from ebay for 55. They do popup from time to time
Yes. But not because they distinguish speech. I believe all smoke/co alarms have to emit a different tone for a fire emergency vs a carbon monoxide alert. So the emitted tone, before the spoken alert, permits the Ecolink Firefighter to distinguish between the two.
That’s correct, the alert tones for smoke and CO are standardized by UL certifications in North America.
BTW someone mentioned CO2 above re: nest protect devices. CO2 = carbon dioxide, and nest protect does not alert for carbon dioxide; neither do any other carbon monoxide (CO) detectors.
Oh, so you wanna know my secret? It's gonna cost you.
Please paypal $0.10 USD to haha@joking.com.
Seriously tho,
1.Pair to HE, leave paired
2. Reset Halo by pushing button for 20 seconds
3. connect to ST and make all settings, frequency and alert selection, save them
4. put HE in zigbee pairing
5. remove the halo from ST, using the app-not the button. It won't say "clearing all settings" but will flash and start pairing.
6. HE says "found previously paired" device
I recently replaced all my smoke detectors; my house has them hardwired and interconnected. I wanted notification if they went off, but I don't want the smoke detectors at all involved in my home automation. I went with regular hardwired, interconnected detectors by Kidde. To link them, I used a Ecolink Firefighter, which mounts next to one of the detectors and listens for the specific sound they output.
(there is also a interconnect relay I could have used, but this was a simpler installation, and the two systems are completely independent)
I corrected that. I did honestly mean co. Not kidding, I had a box of c02 cartridges on my desk I was breaking up for my pannier bags (I use c02 inflators) I obviously wasn't paying attention to what I was typing
Get a contact sensor. Go Control is preferred because it has a spot to hookup external devices. If you can't get one with external hookups and are even slightly competent at soldiering, you can use any contact sensor and remove the reed switch, or just soldier on either side of it to hook up...
Then you add the contact sensor to your Hubitat. when the smokes get kicked, it trips that relay, which opens the contact on the sensor, and Hubitat now knows there is an alert.
There is 1 issue of that is the relay has only 1 output and triggered by either Smoke or CO detected.
Some might prefer able to differentiate them. The 9V (AC I think, not sure) interconnect wire carries a signal that tell other connected alarm that is smoke or CO detected.
I don't have EcoLink FireFighter but I think it can tell different smoke and CO alarm sound?
Someone at ST forum got reply from First Alert support saying they've been working a hardwired model, but that has been many months and no update.
As @trunzoc stated above just go with the interconnect relay. You will have to be able to access this interconnect wire in your existing hard-wired smoke alarm setup, but this isn't to hard to do. Once you have the interconnect relay installed just hook it up to a device that is linked to hubitat. I personally like the zooz zen16, cause you can use it for more than just your smoke alarm interconnect (it has three separate connections for contacts). And if you really want to get creative and have a ton of time to spare, you could hook it up to an arduino device (through hubduino) and then actually be able to have hubitat know when the alarm is for smoke and when the alarm is for carbon monoxide, apparently the signal sent through the interconnect is different for these two alarm states and an arduino can pick that up.
Does anyone know of a hard wired smoke detector that can connect to Hubitat? I'm open to zwave, zigbee, wifi, etc. Would be great to have these integrated, but again it must be hard wired.