I'd argue that Beats is a one trick pony too - selling overpriced crappy plastic headphones.
you just cant let it go, can you? good lord talk about insanity.
here's a good way to think about Beats:
Quote:
Beats makes the most popular line of consumer headphones. Apple makes the most popular line of consumer music players. The 2 products actually plug together to work. *The 2 company's products actually plug together to work.*
Beats is run by one of the most successful music producers in history (Jimmy Iovine) and one of the most successful music artists in history (Andre Young aka Dr. Dre.) Apple is a musical instrument maker who makes the most popular professional music production computer (Mac,) the most popular professional music production software (Logic) as well as the most popular consumer music production computers (iPad/iPhone) and the most popular consumer music production software (GarageBand) as well as the most popular music playback hardware (iPod) and the most popular music playback software (iTunes.) It is very likely that at some point, both Iovine and Young worked on a music project that was made entirely with Apple products, and then they listened to that project entirely with Apple products. That is a common thing to happen in music studios, which are filled with Macs, iPads, iPhones, iPods, Logic, GarageBand, and iTunes. And Beats headphones.
Beats has the music subscription services with the largest selection of music (Beats Music,) and Apple has the music download service with the largest selection of music (iTunes Store.) Put them together and you can offer the consumer a subscription listening service from which they can collect and keep their favorite tracks for a lifetime with 1 tap, as they listen.
The HD music era is just beginning. We will soon move from listening to CD era 16/44 audio files to listening to HD era 24/96 audio files, which is the kind of digital music you find in a music studio (where Iovine and Young have spent many years working.) Enabling the HD era is part of Beats' mission, and Jimmy Iovine has been talking about HD audio and promoting it within the music and technology industries for more than 5 years now. He has been asking which technology company will lead on this for more than 5 years now. Apple's iTunes Music Store has also been promoting the oncoming HD music era for years now, collecting HD music masters under their Mastered for iTunes program. Iovine promoting HD audio to other music producers and Young promoting HD audio to other artists will only make Mastered for iTunes and HD music happen faster. Apple wants it to happen fast because all the subscription services that are cutting into iTunes Music Store sales are streaming 16/44 audio and as streaming services, they don't want to move to the much larger 24/96 files. The 24/96 files give you a reason to download your favorite songs again, because the downloads will once again be too big to stream. HD audio gives iTunes downloads a second life. So by buying Beats, Apple has essentially answered Iovine's question of which technology company will lead on HD audio by saying, “It will be Apple, and you will be heading it up from within Apple.”
HD music also needs hardware support. Macs have had built-in HD audio for many years, and iOS devices will either get built-in support for HD or support for HD audio accessories that plug onto Lightning. For example, a set of Apple Beats headphones with a 24/96 decoder built into them and a Lighting plug on the end of the cable. That would be the perfect way to enable all the existing Lightning-compatible devices (iPad 4, iPad Air, iPad mini, the latest iPod nano, and iPhone 5 or later) to playback HD music.
Further, the “Beats” brand is compatible with Apple's marketing efforts. Same as when Apple bought the famous Logic music production software and turned it into Apple Logic, they can turn the Beats products into Apple Beats.
So rather than being hard pressed to see a reason why the Apple/Beats deal makes sense, it is actually hard to find a way it does not make sense. The founders are similar, the current hardware products plug together, the music production connections are the same, the music retailing services complement each other, the future HD products complement each other, and the branding is even complimentary.
For those of you looking for a credit. It looks like Nest is offering $30 back per Nest Protect purchased (link provided from Engadget's comments on their article):
I already submitted mine, and received a confirmation e-mail back from Nest. The form is kind of weird and doesn't give you any real confirmation when you submit it, but it worked for me.
I'm not excited about the change in ownership either, but I have been happy with my two units, and I will probably take my $60 and apply it to a third unit.
Thanks, I went and submitted to get my credit as well. I'll probably put that $66 toward buying another one like you said.
I've had them for about 6 months now and am really happy with them. I liked the wave to silence feature, but it sounds like now you can silence by just hitting the button, or using the app, so that will work fine too. Probably a little bit better than waving, since I found I had to sit there under the detector waving my arms back and forth numerous times before it worked anyway (which is why it suprises me that this was an issue for them at all).
Like Waterrockets said, waving only silenced the alerts. The alerts were just to warn you that it sensed a small amount of smoke or CO like you burned the toast or something like that. It allowed you to silence the alert and gave you time to make sure the smoke was clearing before the full blown alarm went off. If the smoke or CO levels continued to climb after you silenced the alert, the alarm would still go off. This again is why I am suprised that they have had issues and feel like the wave feature could pose a danger. It wasn't like the wave feature totally shut off the detector.
Either way, like I said I have been very happy with mine and do recommend them. The new lower price is great, and will only get me to recommend them more (I felt that $130 was a bit high, and the only reason I got them was as gifts/bought with gift cards). $100 puts it much closer in cost to similar units (like the First Alert One Link).
When would you ever want to turn off the CO alarm when you should get out of the area?
First, we need to make clear here you can only silence the "heads up" alert. The "heads up" alert sounds when the Nest senses some smoke/CO, but not enough to be an emergency. The Nest gives you a "heads up" that says hey I see this room has some smoke or CO in it, you might want to check this out. That gives you time to go to that room and see what is going on. Maybe it is the electric heater turning on for the first time that fall and all the dust is burning off making a tiny bit of smoke, maybe a candle was blown out, etc. You can go in there, silence the "heads up" and open a window, turn on a fan etc. to disperse the smoke/CO.
If were a real fire the smoke or CO levels would continue to rise. If they continue to rise and reach the actual dangerous levels the true alarm will go off and you can't silence that by waving/pushing the button/using the app.
So that being said it is highly unlikely you will ever need to silence the CO alarm, because that one usually isn't going to be set off by something like burning food, heater first turning on etc. It is pretty much only going to go off if there is a serious problem, and then it is probably going to be followed closely by the real alarm telling you to get out of the area/house.
The wave/silence feature is mostly to reduce nuiscance smoke alarms. Like the heater turning on the first time, accidental burning of food etc.
Looking at the Protect user guide, the wave will only silence "Heads-Up" alerts, which would be like a burning dinner. Critical emergencies (thick smoke) cannot be silenced with the wave. Clearly there has to be a reset time after the wave, but skimming that document, I didn't find it.
Little time to code and test is not an excuse. That's poor management. Omiting test cases that are not obvious is forgivable, but still a mistake. Maybe the CPSC didn't have rules in place to test against, then the Protect came out, and they didn't like some portion of the implementation, and wrote some new rules.
After skimming the user guide, it's tough to see if this is from a CPSC change or a Nest shortfall.
Agreed - was just thinking that if a ship date was already set and someone decided to add a last minute feature WITHOUT doing the due diligence to ensure that the feature would meet any and all safety considerations that it is possible that is what happened. If that was a feature from the initial conception and was not tested adequately that is less forgivable.
Reminds me of something I saw awhile back with a contract requiring a listing of known issues, unknown issues and unknowable issue - but the wording was a little different than that - it was something along the lines of you must document all the possible things that could happen including all the problems that no one can predict. Not just unlikely of statistically rare events but things which cannot be predicted. Seems like a contradiction to me - if I am able to tell you what problems I don't know about doesn't that mean I do know about them? That is along the lines of someone handing you a notebook full of paper and asking you to write down everything you don't know.
I personally love the feature. Saved me twice last winter from having a really upset baby in the middle of the night. The humidifier in the baby's room got set too high and the room filled with fog. The Nest detected it as smoke and gave us a "heads up" that woke us up but not the baby. We were able to open her door and turn on the fan/turn down the humidifier and clear the fog from the room all without the alarm going off and without her waking up.
I can say that hearing "smoke detected in kid's room" in the middle of the night definitely woke my wife and I up immediately though.
In yet another piece of sloppy AI reporting, Mikey Campbell writes: "...the device is once again on store shelves with a hefty price reduction from $130 to $99 and crippled feature set, reports The New York Times."
Well that sounded unlikely, so I checked and no, the NYT did not report that the feature set was "crippled." It reported that the Nest Protect "will go back on sale without a feature that promoted a recall in April."
Why is it that most of AI's articles sound as if they were written by and for 12-year-olds?
And yet prior to the Google acquisition this product was featured heavily in Apple's B&M and online stores. I'd argue that Beats is a one trick pony too - selling overpriced crappy plastic headphones.
Yes, you'd unsurprisingly argue that, because of your obsessive hatred of the beats deal, but of course it would be a completely irrational, illogical argument without a shred of fact. By "one-trick pony" I was referring to the nest thermostat, which seems like a decent product, unlike the smoke alarm.
First of all, a quick perusal of Beats webpage shows multiple product categories. They currently are selling 10 different models of heaphones, 8 models of earphones (not including color options which brings it closer to 40), 6 types of speakers, many accessories, not to mention Beats Audio, a streaming subscription service that's proven to be pretty successful in terms of percentage of paying customers. But I guess you're categorizing the entire audio category as a "one-trick pony", which is analogous to saying Ford is a 1 trick pony because they make only cars.
Oh, then there's the TINY detail that Beats already is an established brand, with ultra-popular branding and currently dominates the mainstream headphone market. As I said, I don't know a single person with a Nest product yet 8/10 people I see with something in/on their ears are wearing a Beats product.
Your analogy fails on all levels. It's fine having an opinion, but at least try to inform it with something other than your personal tastes or emotion. I don't own a single Beats products, probably never will, and don't hold any particular love for the company- but I'm able to separate that from their success, and acknowledge the facts and their merits.
In yet another piece of sloppy AI reporting, Mikey Campbell writes: "...the device is once again on store shelves with a hefty price reduction from $130 to $99 and crippled feature set, reports The New York Times."
Well that sounded unlikely, so I checked and no, the NYT did not report that the feature set was "crippled." It reported that the Nest Protect "will go back on sale without a feature that promoted a recall in April."
Why is it that most of AI's articles sound as if they were written by and for 12-year-olds?
To get a rise out of people silly, there is tons of positive news about every company but only the negative ones get reported here to show how evil or crappy they all are. Same thing happens on every fan site that focuses on a single company or product, nothing new. So there is no reason to get bent out of shape over it, just don't participate in the particular discussion that bothers you.
The other problem is that these units have to be replaced in 7 years.
In a larger home you may need 10-15 of these.
That's over a grand every few years.
If the price comes way down I'll consider them in 5-6 years when my current detectors are expiring.
That one-link requires the smoke detectors to be hard wired together, which many homes do not have. This is the one that is a closer match to the Nest Protect.
It features the WiFi link between units and talking alarm to tell you which room is triggering the event. Seems to run between $60-80 which is still cheaper than the Protect, but the Protect is now much closer in price than it used to be. The protect offers a couple features that the One Link doesn't like notification on your phone if your alarm goes off in your home, night light, and the "heads up" alerts that I like.
Nests go off for absolutely no reason, and the wave didn't silence them anyhow. I know two people who have deployed them, and subsequently ripped all of them out for refunds, for the same reason. Going off at 2 am, no fire, no way to turn them off. And when one goes off, they ALL go off.
Nests go off for absolutely no reason, and the wave didn't silence them anyhow. I know two people who have deployed them, and subsequently ripped all of them out for refunds, for the same reason. Going off at 2 am, no fire, no way to turn them off. And when one goes off, they ALL go off.
If I remember right Nest admitted there was a batch made with bad sensors that caused this to happen. Replaced them all for free or offered refunds. I think there was also a batch with bad batteries that were dead when they arrived, again Nest offered free replacement batteries or a refund.
While it does seem like they have hit a few roadbumps with this product they do seem to be working very hard to take care of their customers when they happen. And it seems like the units that haven't had issues are holding up well (I haven't had a single issue with either of mine).
As far as no way to turn them off when they go off, that is true for every smoke/CO detector out there. The only way is to take them down and take out the batteries. All of them going off when one goes off is the whole point of having interconnected smoke/CO2 detectors. If the first alert one link had a bad sensor that caused it to go off, they would all go off, and continue going off until you removed all the batteries just the same.
I had bought a couple of protect and during the install I noticed it had no interconnect wire (normally the red wire). I contacted them and they claim that is by design and they talk to each other wirelessly (and they do) BUT:
This means you must change all of your smoke detectors at once i.e. you cannot change them one at a time. I liked them because it was easy to know which unit had detected a problem so you can quickly investigate.
My smoke detectors are made by Kidde and they are wired together with the red wire and also wired into the alarm system so it can be monitored. I think they are all in one zone though. It would be nice if I knew which one was detecting something. Usually it is the one closest to the kitchen. Like the CarTalk guys said. "At our house, when the smoke detector goes off, we know it's dinner time."
Just you wait, these Nest devices will be installed on all future jet packs and self-driving cars... In addition, Google Glass will channel your home security camera so you can see in real time which room of your home is a flaming inferno...
Comments
I'd argue that Beats is a one trick pony too - selling overpriced crappy plastic headphones.
you just cant let it go, can you? good lord talk about insanity.
here's a good way to think about Beats:
Beats makes the most popular line of consumer headphones. Apple makes the most popular line of consumer music players. The 2 products actually plug together to work. *The 2 company's products actually plug together to work.*
Beats is run by one of the most successful music producers in history (Jimmy Iovine) and one of the most successful music artists in history (Andre Young aka Dr. Dre.) Apple is a musical instrument maker who makes the most popular professional music production computer (Mac,) the most popular professional music production software (Logic) as well as the most popular consumer music production computers (iPad/iPhone) and the most popular consumer music production software (GarageBand) as well as the most popular music playback hardware (iPod) and the most popular music playback software (iTunes.) It is very likely that at some point, both Iovine and Young worked on a music project that was made entirely with Apple products, and then they listened to that project entirely with Apple products. That is a common thing to happen in music studios, which are filled with Macs, iPads, iPhones, iPods, Logic, GarageBand, and iTunes. And Beats headphones.
Beats has the music subscription services with the largest selection of music (Beats Music,) and Apple has the music download service with the largest selection of music (iTunes Store.) Put them together and you can offer the consumer a subscription listening service from which they can collect and keep their favorite tracks for a lifetime with 1 tap, as they listen.
The HD music era is just beginning. We will soon move from listening to CD era 16/44 audio files to listening to HD era 24/96 audio files, which is the kind of digital music you find in a music studio (where Iovine and Young have spent many years working.) Enabling the HD era is part of Beats' mission, and Jimmy Iovine has been talking about HD audio and promoting it within the music and technology industries for more than 5 years now. He has been asking which technology company will lead on this for more than 5 years now. Apple's iTunes Music Store has also been promoting the oncoming HD music era for years now, collecting HD music masters under their Mastered for iTunes program. Iovine promoting HD audio to other music producers and Young promoting HD audio to other artists will only make Mastered for iTunes and HD music happen faster. Apple wants it to happen fast because all the subscription services that are cutting into iTunes Music Store sales are streaming 16/44 audio and as streaming services, they don't want to move to the much larger 24/96 files. The 24/96 files give you a reason to download your favorite songs again, because the downloads will once again be too big to stream. HD audio gives iTunes downloads a second life. So by buying Beats, Apple has essentially answered Iovine's question of which technology company will lead on HD audio by saying, “It will be Apple, and you will be heading it up from within Apple.”
HD music also needs hardware support. Macs have had built-in HD audio for many years, and iOS devices will either get built-in support for HD or support for HD audio accessories that plug onto Lightning. For example, a set of Apple Beats headphones with a 24/96 decoder built into them and a Lighting plug on the end of the cable. That would be the perfect way to enable all the existing Lightning-compatible devices (iPad 4, iPad Air, iPad mini, the latest iPod nano, and iPhone 5 or later) to playback HD music.
Further, the “Beats” brand is compatible with Apple's marketing efforts. Same as when Apple bought the famous Logic music production software and turned it into Apple Logic, they can turn the Beats products into Apple Beats.
So rather than being hard pressed to see a reason why the Apple/Beats deal makes sense, it is actually hard to find a way it does not make sense. The founders are similar, the current hardware products plug together, the music production connections are the same, the music retailing services complement each other, the future HD products complement each other, and the branding is even complimentary.
http://www.loopinsight.com/2014/05/28/apple-acquires-beats-for-3-billion/
For those of you looking for a credit. It looks like Nest is offering $30 back per Nest Protect purchased (link provided from Engadget's comments on their article):
https://nest.com/nest-protect-credit/
I already submitted mine, and received a confirmation e-mail back from Nest. The form is kind of weird and doesn't give you any real confirmation when you submit it, but it worked for me.
I'm not excited about the change in ownership either, but I have been happy with my two units, and I will probably take my $60 and apply it to a third unit.
Thanks, I went and submitted to get my credit as well. I'll probably put that $66 toward buying another one like you said.
I've had them for about 6 months now and am really happy with them. I liked the wave to silence feature, but it sounds like now you can silence by just hitting the button, or using the app, so that will work fine too. Probably a little bit better than waving, since I found I had to sit there under the detector waving my arms back and forth numerous times before it worked anyway (which is why it suprises me that this was an issue for them at all).
Like Waterrockets said, waving only silenced the alerts. The alerts were just to warn you that it sensed a small amount of smoke or CO like you burned the toast or something like that. It allowed you to silence the alert and gave you time to make sure the smoke was clearing before the full blown alarm went off. If the smoke or CO levels continued to climb after you silenced the alert, the alarm would still go off. This again is why I am suprised that they have had issues and feel like the wave feature could pose a danger. It wasn't like the wave feature totally shut off the detector.
Either way, like I said I have been very happy with mine and do recommend them. The new lower price is great, and will only get me to recommend them more (I felt that $130 was a bit high, and the only reason I got them was as gifts/bought with gift cards). $100 puts it much closer in cost to similar units (like the First Alert One Link).
When would you ever want to turn off the CO alarm when you should get out of the area?
When would you ever want to turn off the CO alarm when you should get out of the area?
First, we need to make clear here you can only silence the "heads up" alert. The "heads up" alert sounds when the Nest senses some smoke/CO, but not enough to be an emergency. The Nest gives you a "heads up" that says hey I see this room has some smoke or CO in it, you might want to check this out. That gives you time to go to that room and see what is going on. Maybe it is the electric heater turning on for the first time that fall and all the dust is burning off making a tiny bit of smoke, maybe a candle was blown out, etc. You can go in there, silence the "heads up" and open a window, turn on a fan etc. to disperse the smoke/CO.
If were a real fire the smoke or CO levels would continue to rise. If they continue to rise and reach the actual dangerous levels the true alarm will go off and you can't silence that by waving/pushing the button/using the app.
So that being said it is highly unlikely you will ever need to silence the CO alarm, because that one usually isn't going to be set off by something like burning food, heater first turning on etc. It is pretty much only going to go off if there is a serious problem, and then it is probably going to be followed closely by the real alarm telling you to get out of the area/house.
The wave/silence feature is mostly to reduce nuiscance smoke alarms. Like the heater turning on the first time, accidental burning of food etc.
Looking at the Protect user guide, the wave will only silence "Heads-Up" alerts, which would be like a burning dinner. Critical emergencies (thick smoke) cannot be silenced with the wave. Clearly there has to be a reset time after the wave, but skimming that document, I didn't find it.
Little time to code and test is not an excuse. That's poor management. Omiting test cases that are not obvious is forgivable, but still a mistake. Maybe the CPSC didn't have rules in place to test against, then the Protect came out, and they didn't like some portion of the implementation, and wrote some new rules.
After skimming the user guide, it's tough to see if this is from a CPSC change or a Nest shortfall.
Agreed - was just thinking that if a ship date was already set and someone decided to add a last minute feature WITHOUT doing the due diligence to ensure that the feature would meet any and all safety considerations that it is possible that is what happened. If that was a feature from the initial conception and was not tested adequately that is less forgivable.
Reminds me of something I saw awhile back with a contract requiring a listing of known issues, unknown issues and unknowable issue - but the wording was a little different than that - it was something along the lines of you must document all the possible things that could happen including all the problems that no one can predict. Not just unlikely of statistically rare events but things which cannot be predicted. Seems like a contradiction to me - if I am able to tell you what problems I don't know about doesn't that mean I do know about them? That is along the lines of someone handing you a notebook full of paper and asking you to write down everything you don't know.
Here's the page on Nest's website about the "Heads Up" and Emergency alarms.
http://support.nest.com/article/What-s-the-difference-between-Heads-Up-and-Emergency-Alarms
I personally love the feature. Saved me twice last winter from having a really upset baby in the middle of the night. The humidifier in the baby's room got set too high and the room filled with fog. The Nest detected it as smoke and gave us a "heads up" that woke us up but not the baby. We were able to open her door and turn on the fan/turn down the humidifier and clear the fog from the room all without the alarm going off and without her waking up.
I can say that hearing "smoke detected in kid's room" in the middle of the night definitely woke my wife and I up immediately though.
blahblahblah Beats blahblah
You're doing your damndest to cultivate this into a meme, but face it... this is long past it's Sell By date. We're talking green and fluffy here.
I can say that hearing "smoke detected in kid's room" in the middle of the night definitely woke my wife and I up immediately though.
Yeah, that's sobering.
Well that sounded unlikely, so I checked and no, the NYT did not report that the feature set was "crippled." It reported that the Nest Protect "will go back on sale without a feature that promoted a recall in April."
Why is it that most of AI's articles sound as if they were written by and for 12-year-olds?
And yet prior to the Google acquisition this product was featured heavily in Apple's B&M and online stores. I'd argue that Beats is a one trick pony too - selling overpriced crappy plastic headphones.
Yes, you'd unsurprisingly argue that, because of your obsessive hatred of the beats deal, but of course it would be a completely irrational, illogical argument without a shred of fact. By "one-trick pony" I was referring to the nest thermostat, which seems like a decent product, unlike the smoke alarm.
First of all, a quick perusal of Beats webpage shows multiple product categories. They currently are selling 10 different models of heaphones, 8 models of earphones (not including color options which brings it closer to 40), 6 types of speakers, many accessories, not to mention Beats Audio, a streaming subscription service that's proven to be pretty successful in terms of percentage of paying customers. But I guess you're categorizing the entire audio category as a "one-trick pony", which is analogous to saying Ford is a 1 trick pony because they make only cars.
Oh, then there's the TINY detail that Beats already is an established brand, with ultra-popular branding and currently dominates the mainstream headphone market. As I said, I don't know a single person with a Nest product yet 8/10 people I see with something in/on their ears are wearing a Beats product.
Your analogy fails on all levels. It's fine having an opinion, but at least try to inform it with something other than your personal tastes or emotion. I don't own a single Beats products, probably never will, and don't hold any particular love for the company- but I'm able to separate that from their success, and acknowledge the facts and their merits.
How is a company that sold $57.2+ million (~$43.6+ million after refunds) of their 2nd (and least popular product) a one trick pony?
Still can't justify the cost.
First Alert One Link is still about 1/3 the cost.
http://www.amazon.com/SC9120B-Hardwire-Combination-Monoxide-Battery/dp/B000HEC4EO/
The other problem is that these units have to be replaced in 7 years.
In a larger home you may need 10-15 of these.
That's over a grand every few years.
If the price comes way down I'll consider them in 5-6 years when my current detectors are expiring.
To get a rise out of people silly, there is tons of positive news about every company but only the negative ones get reported here to show how evil or crappy they all are. Same thing happens on every fan site that focuses on a single company or product, nothing new. So there is no reason to get bent out of shape over it, just don't participate in the particular discussion that bothers you.
Still can't justify the cost.
First Alert One Link is still about 1/3 the cost.
http://www.amazon.com/SC9120B-Hardwire-Combination-Monoxide-Battery/dp/B000HEC4EO/
The other problem is that these units have to be replaced in 7 years.
In a larger home you may need 10-15 of these.
That's over a grand every few years.
If the price comes way down I'll consider them in 5-6 years when my current detectors are expiring.
That one-link requires the smoke detectors to be hard wired together, which many homes do not have. This is the one that is a closer match to the Nest Protect.
http://www.amazon.com/First-Alert-SCO501CN-3ST-SCO500-Combination/dp/B000EVO7C2/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1403024577&sr=1-2&keywords=first+alert+one+link+wifi
It features the WiFi link between units and talking alarm to tell you which room is triggering the event. Seems to run between $60-80 which is still cheaper than the Protect, but the Protect is now much closer in price than it used to be. The protect offers a couple features that the One Link doesn't like notification on your phone if your alarm goes off in your home, night light, and the "heads up" alerts that I like.
Nests go off for absolutely no reason, and the wave didn't silence them anyhow. I know two people who have deployed them, and subsequently ripped all of them out for refunds, for the same reason. Going off at 2 am, no fire, no way to turn them off. And when one goes off, they ALL go off.
If I remember right Nest admitted there was a batch made with bad sensors that caused this to happen. Replaced them all for free or offered refunds. I think there was also a batch with bad batteries that were dead when they arrived, again Nest offered free replacement batteries or a refund.
While it does seem like they have hit a few roadbumps with this product they do seem to be working very hard to take care of their customers when they happen. And it seems like the units that haven't had issues are holding up well (I haven't had a single issue with either of mine).
As far as no way to turn them off when they go off, that is true for every smoke/CO detector out there. The only way is to take them down and take out the batteries. All of them going off when one goes off is the whole point of having interconnected smoke/CO2 detectors. If the first alert one link had a bad sensor that caused it to go off, they would all go off, and continue going off until you removed all the batteries just the same.
Two trick pony: they also have a music streaming business with a high conversion rate.
I had bought a couple of protect and during the install I noticed it had no interconnect wire (normally the red wire). I contacted them and they claim that is by design and they talk to each other wirelessly (and they do) BUT:
This means you must change all of your smoke detectors at once i.e. you cannot change them one at a time. I liked them because it was easy to know which unit had detected a problem so you can quickly investigate.
My smoke detectors are made by Kidde and they are wired together with the red wire and also wired into the alarm system so it can be monitored. I think they are all in one zone though. It would be nice if I knew which one was detecting something. Usually it is the one closest to the kitchen. Like the CarTalk guys said. "At our house, when the smoke detector goes off, we know it's dinner time."
Just you wait, these Nest devices will be installed on all future jet packs and self-driving cars... In addition, Google Glass will channel your home security camera so you can see in real time which room of your home is a flaming inferno...