We have a Google Home device. We have a smartthings hub. We have a home alarm system and are looking for some type of sensor that will not only notify us when our home alarm goes off but when our smoke and carbon monoxide detectors go off.
Does not have to connect to smartthings.
Any suggestions?
That will send a z-wave notification when another alarm (smoke/co) goes off. Basically a loud noise sensor.
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In the US, residential smoke detectors are required to have one specific sound pattern, and CO detectors have a different one.
Kidde makes a plug-in acoustic sensor which can detect both of these patterns and then uses Wi-Fi to notify you.
There’s no integration with SmartThings except through the free IFTTT service, but it’s another option to consider
The 2015 and 2016 reviews of this device were pretty bad because people had a lot of difficulty setting it up. They have fixed that, so check the more recent reviews.
There are pros and cons to both of these devices, and some people might even want to get one of each.
The ecolink is battery operated, but must be placed within 6 inches of your existing smoke detector. And the default configuration only to text the smoke alarm – – if you also wanted to detect carbon monoxide, it will use up battery is much more quickly.
Note, that the sensor must be mounted within 6 inches of the detector with the microphone oriented toward the detector.
And although the marketing materials say:
instantly sends you a text or email notification
That’s not actually true. What happens is this device sends a notification to your hub. Any messaging comes from your hub, which, as we know, in SmartThings is a cloud-based operation.
The remotelync has to be plugged in, so you don’t have to change batteries, but your power does have to be working. It uses your Wi-Fi, not your hub, to send messages. The remotelync can typically hear a smoke alarm from several rooms away. There is a testing protocols so you can verify which alarms it can hear.
So if your power is on and your Wi-Fi is working, but SmartThings is being flaky or the SmartThings cloud is unavailable, the remotelync will be able to notify you when the ecolink cannot. You will get one cloud message that your power is out if the device becomes unreachable from its own cloud, and another message when the power comes back on. That’s similar to smartthings “hub is offline” message.
The ecolink doesn’t need power for itself, but your hub still has to be working or you won’t get the messages.
So neither one is as good as some of the ones that come with security systems which have battery backup and cellular communications, but either is probably better than nothing. And the ones that have cellular usually require their own models of smoke alarms, you can’t use your existing dumb system.
Netatmo weather station has noise level sensor. I use it in SmartThings to adjust the volume on AV devices.
Am obviously missing something here. Can you speak directly about a resolution to my issue/question and how to make that happen? What is dth?
suggestions,
LEEO is a plug-in Wifi sound-monitor/nightlight, that listens for smoke and water alarms, among other functions. Water alarms are non-standardized but if it hears an alarm sound of long-duration, and it is not a smoke alarm, then I assume that IT assumes a water leak. It has called me 4-5 times for actual sounds worth investigating in the last year or so
Wyze cameras also has seperate camera settings to monitor sound, smoke alarm, and CO alarm. I haven’t tested them.
Neither natively connect to Smartthings.
I like the Leeo a lot, and have one in my own home, but Amazon and Best Buy are no longer carrying them and the manufacturer has doubled the price. So something’s going on there, I’m not sure what.
The most optimistic interpretation I could make is that they’re getting ready to bring out a new version so they can’t meet the inventory requirements for selling through the big retailers. The most pessimistic version would be that the company is running out of money. But in either case, for now, I am recommending that people look at the kidde device instead. I like the Leeo better, but because there is a cloud component, I’m just not sure if it will be around for another three years, which is my usual perspective when buying new devices.
Here is a link to the Netatmo product I mentioned earlier:
Thanks for the info! Much appreciated.
Depending on your home alarm, you might be able to just the home alarm sensors as devices in ST…
Thanks for the recommendation. Picked up the ecolink on eBay during the 15% off sale. I was looking for an alternative to Leeo that used a more open standard.
Hi,
I also got the [Ecolink Z-Wave Plus Firefighter FF-ZWAVE5, Smoke and CO Audio Detector] and for the pass few days couldn’t get it to work for the love of me. I was able to pair it, I also installed the IDE. The only message I get is the Tampered message. I did the test on my smoke detector and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong. I am planning to actually return it sometime today as it is useless and maybe go buy the First Alert 2 in 1
Any advice from individuals who got it to work. I mean seemed straight forward but maybe I am missing something or it really doesn’t work
Thanks
Make sure you point the mic at the smoke detector and it should only be a few inches from the detector. I also went into the idea and changed the device handler to a default factory one and it seems to be working well when I ran tests.
I ended up returning it as it didnt work after pretty much trying everything even what u had mentioned.
I will have to figure another alternative way
It’s a few months later and I just got an Ecolink firefighter and I have exactly the same issue. It reports temp, battery and tampering, but no matter what I try, it will not report when the smoke alarms go off. I’m using the Ecolink device handler from Ecolink which is also available here (erocm123). Anybody get it to work right yet?