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09mar2021's profile

Friday, August 13th, 2021 5:50 PM

Smoke detector testing.

Testing my smoke detector by pressing the button, the smoke detector beeps and the base station beeps but.. the test doesn't show up on the timeline and I'm not notified by Central Monitoring. It is as if the test goes to the base station but no further and never reaches outside my house.

Other tests work perfectly, so the problem is limited to the smoke detector.

I swapped out the smoke detector but the problem did not resolve, so the smoke detector isn't the problem.

Any ideas?  Simplisafe support was baffled.

Thank you!!

Community Admin

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5.7K Messages

3 years ago

Hi marc9,

Sorry for the confusion! For Gen 3 systems, there are two ways to test your Carbon Monoxide Detectors and Smoke Detectors.

First, just pressing the button on the face triggers a very loud chirping, which is echoed on the Base Station and any Wireless Siren you have attached to the system. This tests both the speakers and the connectivity between the sensor and the Base Station.

Second, if you want to test the signal between your system and Monitoring, for any sensor, you'll want to put your system into Test Mode (which you can activate through the Keypad). When you press the Test Button, you'll get a separate event on the Timeline for each press.

(edited)

13 Messages

Thank you, Johnny!

Out of curiosity, where is this change documented?  I made two technical support calls and neither rep was aware of it. It took 90 minutes to reach a tech support rep the first time!  I swapped out and their suggestion a perfectly good smoke detector. How was one supposed to know about this? I have another Gen 2 system which, as you point out, doesn't behave this way, nor is this documented in the Smoke Detector instructions so far as I can tell.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. My system is working exactly as you described. I'm just frustrated that it took so much effort to figure it out.

1 Message

2 years ago

So to confirm: So if you press the "TEST" button in LIVE mode, this will only test the signal between the smoke detector & the Base Unit? The Smoke detector will NOT send a signal to central station monitoring when you press the "TEST" button unless you place the system in TEST MODE? 

The ONLY way the LIVE system will send a signal to central station monitoring is if the sensor ACTUALLY detects SMOKE?

Community Admin

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5.7K Messages

@info_6d924f​ don't forget that when you put your system into Test Mode using the Keypad, that will send a "User Generated Test" signal to the service.

And if you have Monitoring Service subscribed, you'll get a call from a professional monitoring operator. You're essentially testing that your whole system is connected to Monitoring.

1 Message

The problem with this testing paradigm is that it’s not end-to-end. We’re just trusting that the smoke alarm, when detecting smoke, will also trigger a notification and monitoring service call.

Given that other simplisafe devices can be in buggy, partially-connected states (like the simplisafe door locks), a lack of end-to-end testing means we will not know whether this alarm will work until it is too late, when there is an actual fire.

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