Anyway, I already ordered them.
I'm going to try the ZCombo in the garage. If it fails there, I still have the siren for maybe other stuff and relocate the ZCombo.
I'm not sure what the Ecotech Siren is. Perhaps you mean Ecolink? In any case, I'd say they answer to your question depends on what you plan on doing with them together. They are both fine devices on their own (and notably, the smoke detector is like a "dumb" one that has its own standard built-in alarm, regardless of Z-Wave connectivity). So, not a bad buy regadless, IMHO.
2 Likes
I have been using a ZCombo smoke/CO detector and a Utilitech siren for years. Fortunately, I've never had the ZCombo activate with a warning which would trigger the siren. I have triggered the siren many times by forgetting to disarm the HSM. I can verify that the Utilitech siren is loud.
1 Like
I can vouch for the ZCombo being blood-curdlingly loud. Source: smoke from cooking on the stove a couple of times.
Yes I did, duh.
It was late, for me, and it was probably an impulse buy as well.
Thanks.
Will change.
I have a bunch of old Utilitech water sensors.
Built like a tank and just work.
Thing is, the detector will be in the garage, which is always a problem.
There's a lot of stuff in there that could conceivably catch fire and early warning would be nice for escape and potentially putting it out.
But garage...and potential false alarms...ostensibly. CO from cars starting and, for me, spiders, lol. The ZCOMBO is PE, so I feel more vulnerable to the little buggers, so I'll be coating the area around the detector with anti-bug stuff. CO detectors don't go off instantly, and I don't idle the cars in the garage. This'll be a real world experiment, lol.
Now that I think of it, what do you do if you're charging your electric car in the garage? I've seen a video or two of scooters catching fire.
Anyway, I'm not running a cable out there to interconnect, so I thought I'd try this setup out.
If I wanted to avoid PE, or CO, I guess I could've gone another route with the Ecolink (?) device that senses sounds the detector makes, and choose a different detector, maybe heat, if even possible to find. Perhaps, rigged up an interconnected type detector and use the Zooz or BRK products to send a Z-wave signal.
Still would have to rig up a siren, so that's where the Ecolink siren comes in. With Z-Wave maybe could duplicate CO vs Smoke alarm tones, or possibly, with difficulty for me, use voice alerts. I'm sure I can find other uses for it if the ZCOMBO doesn't pan out in the garage. It won't take too many false alarms before I hear a lot of negative feedback.
Perhaps a late night impulse buy, but it'll be interesting, and I still do feel that the garage does need some detection.
I wonder if the two can be directly associated?
I'm thinking no, because z-wave associations usually require a physical button push or switch.
Well, I found an old thread of mine where I directly associated an Ecolink contact sensor to a GE/Jasco switch. I have no idea, even if this was possible to the Ecolink siren, what would happen. But it's intriguing idea for a garage solution for me: hook up that contact sensor to one independent AC-powered interconnect-type alarm via a BRK or Zooz relay and have it operate the siren even if the hub was down. Maybe even the Ecolink Firefighter listener device could be associated... In the interest of improved reliability.
