Are There Quiet Fire Alarms?

[Jaysterk]

Is anyone familiar with any fire alarms that aren't so loud/damaging to hearingthat I can run at my place?

I am trying to be proactive and prevent any unnecessary damage by replacing them with something a little less intrusive to our ears.

Anyone?

 

[Bill Bauer]

Is anyone familiar with any fire alarms that aren't so loud/damaging to hearingthat I can run at my place?

I am trying to be proactive and prevent any unnecessary damage by replacing them with something a little less intrusive to our ears.

Anyone?

Unfortunately, over the past 3.5 years nobody on this forum has been able to answer this question...

 

[linearb]

This comes up a lot, here's my take as someone who heats with wood fire and thus has even more compelling reasons than most for having a whole-home alarm system.

Reposting from another thread.

I believe that normal acoustic smoke alarms present pretty minimal risks as long as they are properly mounted and at a reasonable decibel level.

Every horror story I've ever seen has involved either: somewhat sustained exposure right at ear-level from a nearby device, industrial-scale alarms as you have in huge buildings, or both.

Since my tinnitus got significantly worse following an acoustic trauma in 2010, I've been exposed to routine civilian smoke and fire alarms a half dozen times, once at near head level for a period of a couple minutes while I was protecting my kid's ears and trying to get something to stop smoking; none of these exposures has caused me even temporary problems.

Your risk calculus may be different, but I heat my house with wood fires and have a child, so, fire alarms are not really optional (even though they are, in terms of as a matter of law). We have a smoke alarm in our room over the bed, but it's ~6' in the air, keeping it ~8' from my head. The loudest alarms I'm aware of are 120db at ~6" from source -- that's much louder than you need for home (and louder than ours), but that means they are 114db at 12", 108db at 24", 102db at 48".

I wouldn't want 120db blasted right into my ear for any length of time; short term exposure to 100db scares me far less than not having enough notice to get our family out of a burning house. Usually by the time you wake up from smelling smoke (if you do at all) it's much too late.

Many civilian alarms are marketed as "85db at 10'", which would imply to me they are 91db at 5', 97db at 2.5', 103 db at 1.25', 109db at 0.75', 115db at 0.3525'. So, these are probably around that 120db at source.

The trick here is just to mount the device in such a place that you will never be closer to 10' from where it is when it goes off. This likely also means you won't have a straightforward way to reset it / turn it off, without getting a step stool or something, but if you just keep a pair of earmuffs hanging on the wall that you can grab, then you can put muffs on as you go to disable the alarm (or, just flee the building if it's actually on fire).

You'll be hard pressed to find alarm systems that run at much less than 115 dB; these are designed to be loud for a reason. But there is no reason to be worried about that noise if you install your devices thoughtfully and understand basic acoustics.

 

[Steph1710]

I think you can have ones that flash for deaf people. They let off a really bright light, but I presume they have sound with them so that others could hear and help?
But you and many others probably already know this.

Perhaps you could take the risk and modify them to only flash and install one in every room...

Disclaimer: I know this is a ridiculous idea.

The lengths we have to go through hey.

 

[lymebite]

The Google Nest Protect Smoke Alarm uses speech that talks to you to tell you what is happening instead of generating a piercing alarm sound. And you do not need to go near it to turn it off, you do that with your smartphone.

https://store.google.com/us/product/nest_protect_2nd_gen

 

[Tanni]

The Google Nest Protect Smoke Alarm uses speech that talks to you to tell you what is happening instead of generating a piercing alarm sound. And you do not need to go near it to turn it off, you do that with your smartphone.

https://store.google.com/us/product/nest_protect_2nd_gen

Yes, the company I work for has one of these and they are extremely quiet surprisingly. Definitely worth looking into.

Also, we are getting fire alarms installed in our building and the guy who came to quote us advised that there are three different volumes to choose from, so even if you have a regular alarm you can still choose the quietest setting.

 

[linearb]

This came to mind because I am in the process of very deliberately setting up 120 db motion alarms on a few critical places in my property, in some cases in very enclosed spaces.

Thievery is for fools, play dumb games and win dumb prizes. There's been some stuff missing from nearby properties, probably teenagers; I want alarms I can put outside that will wake me up inside and if that means subjecting an intruder to a sonic weapon, well, again, play dumb games and win dumb prizes.

At a glance it is not possible to easily get alarms that go over 120db, but I found one that's 129 and got that. You can get industrial 150db devices to connect to your own motion tripping circuit, but, that's loud enough to be "weapons grade"; probably overkill. Sort of amazing this is a product, though: https://www.amazon.com/150db-Industry-Electric-Driven-Continuous/dp/B07MV32WJN

I found this amusing, remind me not to live next to a ship yard.

I suppose people with tinnitus are well advised to not become cat burglars.

 

[twa]

Yes, the company I work for has one of these and they are extremely quiet surprisingly. Definitely worth looking into.

Also, we are getting fire alarms installed in our building and the guy who came to quote us advised that there are three different volumes to choose from, so even if you have a regular alarm you can still choose the quietest setting.

Does it have an alarm sound or just speaking?

Thank you,
twa

 

[Tanni]

Does it have an alarm sound or just speaking?

Thank you,
twa

Just someone speaking - no 'alarm' sound.

 

[twa]

Just someone speaking - no 'alarm' sound.

Thank you~ it's worth looking into this year!

 

[K.A.]

The Google Nest Protect Smoke Alarm uses speech that talks to you to tell you what is happening instead of generating a piercing alarm sound. And you do not need to go near it to turn it off, you do that with your smartphone.

https://store.google.com/us/product/nest_protect_2nd_gen

How many seconds do you get from the voice alert before the siren sets off?

Also, when reading about the Nest Protect, it says it has built in ultrasonic transducers to detect motion, which I am not a fan of. Do you know if it is possible to disable the ultrasound emitters?

 

[lymebite]

How many seconds do you get from the voice alert before the siren sets off?

Also, when reading about the Nest Protect, it says it has built in ultrasonic transducers to detect motion, which I am not a fan of. Do you know if it is possible to disable the ultrasound emitters?

I have never had a fire (or a false alarm) with my Nest Protects, so I do not know firsthand the amount of time from when the voice alert begins, until the siren sets off, if the voice alert is not cancelled. As I understand it, the voice alert only switches over to the siren if "emergency levels" of smoke are reached. So if I understand that correctly, then if dinner on the stove burns and smokes, it might set off the voice alert but not the siren.

According to Google, the ultrasound may be turned on or off:

This setting is on by default, but you have the ability to turn it off (and then back on as you like) at anytime on your Google Home app. When turned on, your smart display will detect that you're nearby if you're within approximately a 4 ft range (1.2 m) of your device.

To turn Ultrasound sensing on or off, follow these steps:

1. Open the Google Home app
   
   .
2. Select your Nest display.
3. At the top right corner, tap Settings
   
   
   Recognition & sharing.
4. Turn Ultrasound sensing off.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9509981

 

[K.A.]

According to Google, the ultrasound may be turned on or off:

This setting is on by default, but you have the ability to turn it off (and then back on as you like) at anytime on your Google Home app. When turned on, your smart display will detect that you're nearby if you're within approximately a 4 ft range (1.2 m) of your device.

To turn Ultrasound sensing on or off, follow these steps:

1. Open the Google Home app View attachment 43080.
2. Select your Nest display.
3. At the top right corner, tap Settings View attachment 43081 View attachment 43082 Recognition & sharing.
4. Turn Ultrasound sensing off.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9509981

Unfortunantly I believe this is referring to other Nest products that uses the ordinary speakers to produce the ultrasound (Nest display and Google Nest Mini). The Nest Protect has specific ultrasonic transducers as I understand.

 

[lymebite]

The Nest Protect has specific ultrasonic transducers as I understand.

Is that true? This webpage seems to suggest that only the first generation has that technology, and that it is inactive. (I have the second generation.)

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9330256

Ultrasonic

Ultrasonic sensors use sound waves to measure distance to an object and can be used to detect when someone is near a device.

Nest Protect (1st generation)

Currently inactive.

 

[K.A.]

Thanks so much for the link. You may be right about the ultrasonic sensors only being in the 1. gen.

What I have been studying is the teardown of gen 1:

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/nest-protect-teardown/all

I have not been able to yet find a similar teardown of the gen 2 to verify that the sensors are removed.

However, I have reached out to Google Nest customer service. They could however not give me a definite answer even after chatting for a total of 1 hour with 4 different operators, so they finally said they would write a mail to the engineering team to ask about this.

If you are indeed right however, and the gen 2 doesn't have these sensors at all, have they also removed the "waive your hands below the device to stop the alarm sound"-function? Or are they able to use the PIR-sensor for this purpose? Do you know?

 

[lymebite]

If you are indeed right however, and the gen 2 doesn't have these sensors at all, have they also removed the "waive your hands below the device to stop the alarm sound"-function? Or are they able to use the PIR-sensor for this purpose? Do you know?

My Nest Protects definitely have the "Pathlight" function which turns on a nightlight at night if it motion senses you walking nearby. The Pathlight function can be disabled. But because it has Pathlight there do seem to be motion sensors. I don't know if the motion sensors work for waving hands to silence an alarm.

 

[K.A.]

I don't know if the motion sensors work for waving hands to silence an alarm.

As I have understood, the motion detection for the "Pathlight" is done by an integrated PIR-sensor on both gen1 and gen2. PIR-sensors usually do not have high enough resolution/sensitivity for picking up detailed movements, and the more I read about the wave to silence-function, which would be a typical function to use the supersonic sensors, it is indicated that this functionality was actually disabled in the 1gen by Google because of problems with movements during a real alarm and never again enabled. They later introduced silence by app in gen2 as an alternative, but never said anything about their plans for reintroducing a "fixed" wave to silence-functionality.

https://www.slashgear.com/nest-protect-sales-halted-over-flawed-wave-to-silence-feature-03323703/
https://www.slashgear.com/nest-protect-2nd-gen-adds-split-sensor-and-silencing-17388899/

Still haven't been able to verify the sensors themself were actually removed from gen2 though. Would be interesting to know for sure.