Home Fire Safety Solutions in "Smart" Houses

Fire SafetyAl Feldman
Though many of us dream of building a home from the ground up — ensuring that each brick and application meets our standards for supreme security — the truth is that most of us won't have that luxury. Instead, we need to make use of the devices available to us for tackling problems, and implementing improvements room by room. Fortunately, thanks to advances in technology, automation, and software, making your home smarter doesn't have to be as difficult as it seems. Numerous features throughout the home today can connect to mobile devices and tablets, or automated through high-quality smart home technology to offer better security, improved convenience, and greater overall control. In other words, you can connect to each aspect of your home - wherever you are. Not only are these innovations a great way to make sure that your home is the perfect temperature when you arrive home, and that you're improving energy-efficiency wherever possible — they can also improve your security, and offer enhanced fire safety measures. Following, we will discuss some of the latest, and most impressive "Smart Home" products that focus on fire safety.

Lighting the Way to Safety: The Leeo Smart Alert Nightlight

To those of us with children - night lights are not a new concept. However, this particular technological improvement on the standard nightlight could go beyond offering your child sanctuary from the darkness, and even save their lives. The "Leeo Smart" nightlight is designed to monitor the beeping of your smoke alarms, and alert the app on your phone when something is wrong. In other words, this night light isn't just an ideal way to light your children's route out of the house in case of a fire — it also monitors your smoke detectors — regardless of whether they're top-of-the-range tech, or more traditional models. By listening to the frequency emitted by your smoke alarm, the Leeo can send an alert to your smartphone within an instant — informing you of trouble regardless of whether you're in the home, or out of town. Plus, kids will appreciate the fact that they can choose the color of the nightlight every evening.

Must-Have Protection: Nest Protect Smoke Alarm

Owned by Google since 2014, the company "Nest Labs" began to approach the technological side of home safety as the very first industry interested in developing smoke alarms and thermostats. The Nest Protect device automatically monitors levels of carbon monoxide in your home — refreshing up to four hundred times a day. Like many other smart devices, when a problem is registered, an alert will be sent to your smartphone - allowing you to take action. If you also install the Nest learning thermostat in your property, you could access even more benefits. Because issues such as leaking gas-based heating systems create a common source of CO poisoning, this thermostat will automatically shut down the heating system of a home in the event of high CO detection. What's more, it can even shut down the fan system to reduce the circulation of smoke throughout the home.

Personalized Alarms: KidSmart Vocal Smoke Detector

Studies have suggested that as many as nineteen out of twenty children under the age of 16 are capable of sleeping through a fire alarm as loud as 120 decibels. In the hope of appealing to some of those heavy sleepers, KidSmart developed a smoke alarm that plays a parent's voice instead of shrill beep when detecting smoke. The hope is that the familiar sound of a loved one will alert children more effectively. Parents have the opportunity to record a personalized message for their child, using their name, and offering strict instructions for how they can get out of the house safely. The message you record will play continuously, and alternate with a selection of loud beeps in an effort to ensure your child wakes up. One element that many parents appreciate about smart technology such as this, is that it may be able to offer some reassurance to children in a particularly fearful moment.

Alerts for the Hearing Impaired: Kidde Strobe Light Alarm

Children aren't the only people you need to worry about waking in an emergency situation. If you live in a home that includes a hearing-impaired adult or youngster, then you're presented with the fear that a traditional smoke detector may not be able to wake your loved one. For the hearing-impaired, a shrill noise is unlikely to do the trick, but a strobe light could grab their attention - even if they are fast asleep. The Kidde strobe light smoke alarm, for example, uses a powerful strobe to alert people within a home when there is evidence of CO2 or smoke. Even if you're not dealing with family members who suffer from auditory problems, this can be a great additional piece of safety equipment to make sure that everyone in your home is awake and alert when disaster strikes. Not only does it connect easily with other devices, but it also complies with the "Americans with Disabilities" act.

Detect Intruders and Fires: Canary Security

According to a consumer survey conducted by IHS, the most popular device for any smart home is one that is capable of detecting the presence of intruders within a property. The second most popular option, is a device that's capable of detecting hazards such as water leaks, carbon monoxide, and fires. Security options such as "Canary" tackle both issues at once by combining a HD video camera, with a motion detector, microphone, and humidity/temperature sensor. When the machine senses anything strange happening in your home, you'll receive an instant alert, alongside video footage that can help you to decide how you're going to respond. What's more, the system automatically changes settings when you arrive home, so that you don't get constant alerts from the motion detector whenever you get up in the night for a glass of water.

Protecting Your Home From Disaster

Today, smart technology solutions are capable of offering us a variety of benefits - from ensuring there's a fresh cup of coffee waiting for us when we wake up on a morning, to defending our family from disaster. Above, we've covered just some of the most impressive fire-safety solutions offered by smart home technology in the world today. The chances are that these impressive products will continue to improve and evolve along with our knowledge of modern technology.
Tags: Fire safety