Reconsidering the smoke alarm in the smart home

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Reconsidering the smoke alarm in the smart home US Correspondent Catherine Levin reports on smoke alarm innovation Stateside

D

r Larry McKenna works at the US Fire Administration. He has dozens of smoke alarms in his home and insists his family tell him when they go off so that he can take notes. With such a love for smoke alarms and a collection that goes back to the 1960s when smoke alarms cost $85, it is comforting that Larry found his way to the USFA to be their resident expert in this field.

With a $700,000 budget (including some funds from the CPSC), Larry found himself directed to the foothills of East Tennessee, an unlikely place to find smoke alarm innovation, but the home of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Made famous as the home of the Manhattan Project, the development of the atomic bomb in World War Two, Oak Ridge is now a vast scientific research complex, part of the US Department of Energy.

Dr Bruce Warmack, a 38-year veteran of ORNL, is a passionate scientist and an expert in sensor technology. He was intrigued by a request by Larry at the US Fire Administration to see if he could improve the performance of smoke alarms to increase their sensitivity and specificity. He and his team have achieved both with the smart smoke alarm.

When I spoke to Bruce, he talked a lot about toast and training. How do you get your smoke alarm to know the difference between burnt toast and a real fire? You need a microcontroller, “it’s the brains”, says Bruce. The mathematical formula inside the microcontroller that Bruce has developed “improves the intelligence of the sensors in the smoke alarm without changing the sensor technology”, which he says makes it very attractive to commercial partners.

Linear Discrimination Analysis So if the sensors in the smoke alarm can talk to the microcontroller first before talking to the alarm and double check if the readings fit with the profile of smoke or heat from a fire rather than the distraction of burnt toast, then most of those false positives should disappear. It is called a rather fancy name, Linear Discrimination Analysis, which at its heart means it can differentiate between different types of smoke.

The mathematics inside is trained by how sensors have reacted in test scenarios.

ORNL is not in the business of developing commercial products but rather coming up with scientific solutions that the private sector can explore and exploit. ORNL is now in 42 | January 2015 | www.fire–magazine.com

“Innovation in smoke alarm technology goes beyond the sensors. Getting smoke alarms to talk to each other through wireless networks in the home has been a key development”

dialogue with manufacturers about licensing this technology. A process of testing, certification and full production will then follow with it being available to consumers within one to two years.

Innovation in smoke alarm technology goes beyond the sensors. Getting smoke alarms to talk to each other through wireless networks in the home has been a key development. For example, in the US, Kidde sells through outlets like Home Depot a battery operated wireless inter-connectable ionization smoke alarm for around $25.

Competing with five dollar ionization smoke alarms, it is not hard to see why consumers would prefer these to wireless alarms retailing for five times as much. But both have weaknesses: they are single sensor and they have short life replaceable batteries.

Whilst a single sensor smoke alarm may be the best solution for particular circumstances in the home, it does require the consumer to know when ionization is better than photoelectric and vice versa. That is asking a lot of people. The move to multiple sensor smoke alarms allays some of this but ultimately if the wrong type of sensor is in the wrong place in the home, it will become a nuisance.

The point about short life replaceable batteries is important. When a smoke alarm is poorly located it is more likely to go off when it does not need to and it is common to take the battery out to prevent nuisance alarms. Thinking about relocating the smoke alarm and putting those batteries back in is less common and not doing so can result in tragic consequences as the Fire Service knows all too well.

Long-Life Alarms A smoke alarm with a short life replaceable battery is cheaper than a sealed smoke alarm with a ten-year battery. But why have them at all? Would it not be better to remove short life battery alarms from the market through changes to the standards governing their manufacture?

Getting the balance right between cost and functionality is crucial in terms of fire safety outcomes here. This debate is not new but perhaps it needs to be resurfaced by the fire sector if further inroads are to be made into reducing fire statistics.

Innovation is not just limited to the technology inside the smoke alarm. There is a wide range of activity by the industry to try and differentiate the aesthetics of their products in

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an increasingly competitive market place both in the UK and the US. Kidde in the US has decided to take a roomby-room approach to its marketing to help consumers make the right decision without having to think about the sensor technology inside the smoke alarm.

I spoke to Andy Burnett who works for Kidde in the UK and he says this approach historically did not work in the UK. However, their recent research indicates that consumers are warming to the idea of location specific alarms, so we may start to see these in the UK in the future.

Atom, the new smoke alarm from First Alert in the US looks quite different to its peers. It is smaller in circumference but longer in depth.

The 30-second ad from First Alert says that smoke alarms have been “function over form” but now, with its “pleasant micro design”, it is “form and function at a fraction of the size.”

Making smoke alarms smaller and focusing on getting them into the “unprotected rooms in your home” as First Alert prompts us, is one way of setting themselves apart from their competitors. Retailing at just under 20 dollars, these photoelectric smoke alarms are

Photo by Sean Vatcher: www.firephotos.co.uk

no competition for those five dollar alarms in Home Depot.

Changing the way the smoke alarm looks has been key to the approach taken by Nest Labs.

They are relatively recent entrants to the smoke alarm market. Starting out with the premise that some devices in the home are ‘unloved’, Nest has evolved the concept of ‘thoughtful things’.

And they have the luxury of doing so having been bought out by Google for $3.2 billion.

Nest sent me a Protect combined smoke and CO alarm to review (normal retail price $99 or £89). It comes in smart packaging, its roots in Apple design are clear to see; it is rather lovely to look at and it glows a beautiful blue colour when being set up and tested. I set it up using my iPhone and the Nest app; it was simple and quick to do. It talks to me and knows that I chose to put it in the living room. I can check its status using my phone when I am out and about. It will remind me when it needs testing, which is a real bonus.

It has four sensors inside – CO, smoke, heat and steam. It is wireless and would talk to other Protects, if I had them; it would talk to my Nest thermostat if I had that too. I like it but I do not January 2015 | www.fire–magazine.com | 43

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like the 6 AA lithium replaceable batteries inside it: I cannot figure out why they did not put a ten-year battery inside it.

I spoke to Nick Rutter from Sprue Aegis, the makers of FireAngel smoke alarms in the UK. I asked him what he thought about the need to make smoke alarms more acceptable objects in people’s homes. His design goal is to develop products that are aesthetically pleasing and as slim as possible.

He cautioned that by changing the design of the smoke alarm it can change the dynamic of the alarm and therefore require re-certification, a process that can take up to a year and a lot of expense to achieve. Ultimately, it is about volume sales and unless the cost of R&D can be recouped through demand in B&Q and other outlets, it will not be a commercially viable proposition.

For some niche firms that kind of development work can lead to some unexpected results. Nick reminded me about Jalo. They are selling smoke alarms that are far beyond the small white circular object with which we are all familiar. Their offering includes a smoke alarm in the shape of a fly (it sounds odd, but look it up, it is quite attractive) and patterned covers for their square smoke alarm with round edges.

Technological Innovations It is not just the way the smoke alarm looks that is changing; the relationship between the 44 | January 2015 | www.fire–magazine.com

“Ultimately though what we all want are nuisance free, highly effective and affordable smoke alarms in our homes”

smoke alarm and other devices in the home is changing too. It is just one of many devices that can be connected to your smart phone in the Internet of Things; a technological idea that is simple and keeps us connected regardless of where we are.

This is an exciting space to be in right now.

There are tech companies in the US coming up with some great ideas where the need to monitor and alert for smoke and heat is combined with other benefits.

Birdi’s air quality monitoring device treats smoke just like any other potential pollutant in the air (beta launch late 2014). Leeo is a night light that listens to your home, telling you via your smart phone when something is not right – the smoke alarms gone off maybe (only available in the US for $99). Roost is a wireless nine volt battery that turns your cheapo smoke alarm into something more connected. Sfty from Norway focuses on connecting your home to your community.

There are many other examples of innovation in this field, it is moving at a great pace and its using modern fundraising tactics along the way. Battery innovator Roost used a Kickstarter campaign to raise $50,000 in new funds and met its goal after just three days with over 550 funders (and I was one of them).

Nest may have been bought for $3.2 billion but it has a lot of new start-ups vying for the home safety space and, as it has shown in recent times, it buys those who can help it move forward, because it can. The ‘conscious home’ as Nest now likes to call it, is the place Tony Fadell, Nest CEO, would like us all to live in.

All these technological innovators would have us living in a world where we know the smoke alarm has gone off even though we are not at home and this is indeed useful. However, it is not that useful if you cannot get to your home to check what is actually happening. What you need is your smoke alarms to be connected to the fire station or some kind of receiving centre like commercial premises. Maybe Tony Fadell should look at the ‘conscious community’ as well.

Ultimately though what we all want are nuisance free, highly effective and affordable smoke alarms in our homes. We want to know that they will work when we need them to; that we can minimise the amount of testing and get on with our lives.

Perhaps the evolution of the smart home (or the conscious home) is the way forward, but the technology as described here will not have anything like the penetration needed to make a difference to fire statistics in the UK and the US. The technology changes are very exciting and how wonderful it is to have smoke alarms caught up in all this innovation, but it is the battery that remains the Achilles heel. Whilst the cheap, short life, replaceable battery smoke alarm remains on sale and in our homes, we will never achieve our goal of substantial reductions in fires, injuries and fatalities.