Nest suspends sales of Protect smoke & carbon monoxide alarm over safety concerns
Google-owned smart home firm Nest announced on Thursday that it has suspended sales of the Protect Smoke + CO Alarm after discovering one of the product's built-in convenience features poses a potential safety risk.
In a letter posted to Nest's website, cofounder and ex-Apple executive Tony Fadell said Protect's "Nest Wave" function, which turns the alarm off with a wave of the hand, may be unintentionally activated. If this were to happen, an alert could be delayed in the case of a real fire.
From Fadell's statement:
In addition, the company has halted all new Protect device sales while a resolution to the problem is sorted out. Nest is offering full refunds for new owners who do not have Wi-Fi connectivity to properly update the product.
Fadell's Nest Labs was recently acquired by Google for $3.2 billion, though the Internet search giant said the smarthome product firm's operations would remain largely independent.
In a letter posted to Nest's website, cofounder and ex-Apple executive Tony Fadell said Protect's "Nest Wave" function, which turns the alarm off with a wave of the hand, may be unintentionally activated. If this were to happen, an alert could be delayed in the case of a real fire.
From Fadell's statement:
Effective immediately, Nest Wave has been automatically deactivated on Protect units connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi. Owners are urged to turn on Protect's Wi-Fi function so their unit can receive the update.We identified this problem ourselves and are not aware of any customers who have experienced this, but the fact that it could even potentially happen is extremely important to me and I want to address it immediately.
We feel that the best and safest thing to do is to immediately disable the Nest Wave feature to resolve the issue and remove any safety concerns. While we fix Nest Wave, we have also halted sales of all new Nest Protect alarms to ensure no one buys an alarm that needs an immediate update.
In addition, the company has halted all new Protect device sales while a resolution to the problem is sorted out. Nest is offering full refunds for new owners who do not have Wi-Fi connectivity to properly update the product.
Fadell's Nest Labs was recently acquired by Google for $3.2 billion, though the Internet search giant said the smarthome product firm's operations would remain largely independent.
Comments
".......which turns the alarm off with a wave of the hand....."
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"From Fadell's statement:
This is what happens when shareholders have no voting rights. And it is going to get much, much worse
What is dumb is how easy the logic would be to ensure this didn't happen. Basically any trigger must sound for a minimum time before you could allow it to be waved off. If it had not gone off, it shouldn't be suppressing the alarm at all regardless of a possible wave detection. Shouldn't let a stupid feature make it not safe.
With it being even more silly since Nest didn't even design it themselves. They got a third-party firm to do it.
1) I'm not sure Wave will ever be good. Perhaps a physical button -and- access via an app will be enough.
2) I think the Nest Thermostat is great but I was never sold on Nest Protect at any price because what I've been lead to believe are differences in how the effectiveness of the smoke and CO detectors decrease over time, and at different rates. If these sensors were swappable (like a carbon water filter) and the Protect would alert you when it was time (like print SW with printer cartridges) I could get behind that.
Sounds like a winner.
And it's even more silly since Nest didn't even design it themselves. They had a third-party do the design work for them.
"Please return your Protect product to Nest so we can fix the safety issue (install a Google tracking camera)."
Let's just compare a car to a CO/smoke detector.
Effective immediately, Nest Wave has been automatically deactivated on Protect units connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi. Owners are urged to turn on Protect's Wi-Fi function so their unit can receive the update.
Welcome to the new world order where companies can essentially enter your house through your Internet connection and update / deactivate / modify features on your products without your knowledge.
Thank you, but no thank you. This "feature" had trouble written all over it. I wonder if that $3B+ is still burning a hole in Google's pockets.
Hoo-boy.
To all the people hating on this product because it's so "obvious" that an alarm should not have a silencing function...be aware that the original intent was to combat the "crying wolf" effect of overly annoying, hard-to-silence alarms. It's even more useless if people take the batteries out when they're cooking and leave it sitting in the junk drawer.
Obviously the implementation needs tweaking, but it's a great idea to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio. My condo's fire alarm goes off so frequently, we usually just put on our shoes and plug our ears.
They should turn off the Snooze function as well.
LOL. $3,200,000,000
This is what happens when shareholders have no voting rights. And it is going to get much, much worse
Kind of like using an aluminum band on a phone when you are explicitly told it interferes with reception.