Working on integrating my smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarm and it seems like Home Monitor lacks the capability to act on carbon monoxide detection.
I’m using a virtual device which is a smoke detector with CO level in it, but if the CO level is tripped, nothing happens. Only when the smoke detection does it trigger. Unfortunately I don’t see a virtual device that is strictly a CO sensor (I need virtual because of what I’m integrating), but in home monitor, it seems to only look for smoke detectors anyway.
I was wondering why Home Monitor explicitly mentioned both Smoke and CO detectors in the text but only appeared to allow specifying smoke. If it does handle CO but not combined Smoke and CO detectors then that’s quite a nasty bug.
I’ve got First Alert Z-Combo smoke/CO detectors in my house. The verbiage in STHM only talks about monitoring for smoke, but that might just be because smoke detectors are more common. If you go into View Sensors, and then the gear icon, it asks, “Select sensors to monitor for smoke and carbon monoxide.”
Also, the IDE shows the device profile as “smoke-co-battery”, and capability/attributes as “smokeDetector/smoke” and “carbonMonoxideDetector/carbonMonoxide”. Based on that, I’m pretty sure it monitors for both separately. I know how to test the smoke detector side, but not sure how to test for CO safely.
For myself, I’m able to monitor them separately so I’m good.
On my combo unit, the test button does CO and then it does smoke. I’m able to get each because I was able to split out the alert using kidde relays into 2 separate virtual devices. So I have one that is a smoke Detector and one that is a CO detector and those work under STHM. But the combo like you mentioned would not trip for CO.
If I were you, for my own piece of mind I’d figure how to test that combo sensor for carbon Monoxide.
Fortunately, our landlord left a plug-in CO monitor, and we keep that in the central hallway between the HVAC closet, the kitchen, and our bedroom so I think we’re covered for that. We do test the combos monthly with the push button, and ST reports the results correctly.
Interesting. On my physical combo units, when I do push the test button on the detector, it trips both the smoke and the fire components. First it does the CO then it does the smoke. Each is individually picked up by STHM
At first I thought you were quoting me, because I typed exactly that, but deleted it. I went to find out if there was something similar for CO and Wikihow tells me you can buy canned CO to test it with, but the procedure looks like a royal PITA. From 6 feet (2 meters) away,
Use a plastic bag to enclose the CO detector and the test spray nozzle tightly. Spray the canned CO test spray for at least 3 seconds. You’ll need to spray enough so that your detector will be able to pick up the carbon monoxide in the canned test spray. Hold the sprayer down for about 3 seconds. If your detector is working, it will sound the alarm within 15 minutes, at a level of over 500 parts per million.