Smoke Detectors

You could try it.  Thinking about it, the sensor would do what it's designed to do- sound an alarm and send a signal when activated.  If the base isn't looking for a signal from that sensor (because it's not in your list anymore) then it wouldn't do anything when the individual sensor goes off.

Hi tgwillard,

Yes, the Smoke Detectors would work just like regular units, and the only difference is that you won't get a call from Monitoring.
The same goes for the Carbon Monoxide Detectors!

- Johnny M.
SimpliSafe Home Security

Our smoke detector has spontaneously alerted twice in the last two weeks.  No reason why - no smoke in the house, no recent hot showers, no cooking going on.  We were just sitting in the living room and it goes off and alerts the monitoring center.  I've checked everything I can think of and found nothing wrong.  Is our one-year-old smoke detector faulty?

when was the last time you cleaned it? I didn't and asked the same question. My wife of many years suggest I read the owners manual. Since then, no issues.

I clean all of my six smoke sensors bimonthly with a can of compressed air. Bought a case of nine going on 4 years ago at Costco for under 10 bucks

@tgwillard  Now you got me embarrassed. While I know when the sensors are connected to the system, it will tell you when the batteries are low. I think the sensor will chirp a certain way when the battery is low, but of couse that's in the owners manual and.....

Sorry, don't really remember but either call in or good old Johnny M will post in this thread again to clarify and confirm.

@thetwopipers

Our smoke detector has spontaneously alerted twice in the last two weeks. No reason why - no smoke in the house, no recent hot showers, no cooking going on.

Cleaning it is definitely a good idea if you never have. I use canned air, take them down and apart, blast them and put them back.

But also, wow humid is it where you live and what's the humidity like in the house as a whole, regardless of whether there's a shower going? I had some issues last year during the swampiest time of the summer (and I live in a humid area) and the humidity in the house was higher than usual due to some AC issues. Once I got a dehumidifier going and got the humidity down (and then later, the AC issue fixed) we never had another false alarm and I haven't had any issues since. (And never a false alarm in the winter, only in the summer) I also live in an older house that is definitely not as air tight as newer construction is.

FYI, hygrometers are relatively cheap if you want to check the actual humidity in various parts of your house. (They also show historical highs so it can tell you if for some reason the humidity spiked while you were away but was back to normal when you returned)

Sorry, don't really remember but either call in or good old Johnny M will post in this thread again to clarify and confirm.

I can help, indeed! On a Gen3 system, you'll get a Keypad notification for all low batteries, including the Smoke Detector.

Those alerts appear on the Timeline as well.

- Johnny M.
SimpliSafe Home Security