The History

[With Continued Apologies to Dennis Miller]

Twenty-two years ago, I posted a rant on a now-defunct forum about smoke detectors. Seven years later, I reposted it on this blog because the situation had not improved. Now, in 2026, I’m here to report that things have both gotten better and spectacularly worse.

I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but if I’ve learned anything in the past two decades, it’s that the universe has a wicked sense of irony.

The Journey

When I moved to a new house, it didn’t have hard-wired smoke detectors. You’d think I would have been thrilled—no more Heisenberg uncertainty principle draining batteries that were supposed to be backups for a wired system! But no, building codes are a thing, so I needed smoke detectors.

I considered the fancy Nest ones. They were sleek. They were smart. They were expensive. And after my decades-long battle with smoke detector batteries, I was deeply concerned about trusting my life to something that relied entirely on batteries, no matter how “smart” they claimed to be.

So I tried Z-Wave detectors for a while. They would talk to my home automation system! They could send me notifications! The future had arrived! Except the future was flaky. They were hard to keep paired. Every time I changed home automation platforms (and oh, have I changed platforms), I’d have to re-pair them. Or try to re-pair them. Or curse at them while standing on a ladder trying to get them to pair.

Eventually, I settled on a compromise. Originally just three—one on each floor, like in the old days. But then a few years ago, I upgraded. I got the fancy ones. The ones that wirelessly link to each other. The ones that have voice announcements and know what room they’re in. Seven of them. One for each bedroom, plus the usual suspects.

And friends, this is where I need to tell you about the danger of getting what you wish for.

4:30 AM: A Cautionary Tale

Remember how in my original rant I asked for a smoke detector that would talk to me? That would say, “Excuse me Mr. Whitehead, but your batteries are dying, please add them to the shopping list”?

Well, at 4:30 this morning, I got my wish.

“THE KITCHEN SMOKE DETECTOR BATTERY IS LOW! PLEASE REPLACE THE BATTERIES!”

It SCREAMED it, because Smoke Detectors only have one volume. But, I still wasn’t sure what the heck it was. But then, because I have seven smoke detectors that are wirelessly linked, the others all wanted to share the news:

Hall: “THE KITCHEN SMOKE DETECTOR BATTERY IS LOW! PLEASE REPLACE THE BATTERIES!”

Bedroom: “THE KITCHEN SMOKE DETECTOR BATTERY IS LOW! PLEASE REPLACE THE BATTERIES!”

Other bedroom: “THE KITCHEN SMOKE DETECTOR BATTERY IS LOW! PLEASE REPLACE THE BATTERIES!”

Other other bedroom: “THE KITCHEN SMOKE DETECTOR SMOKE BATTERY IS LOW! PLEASE REPLACE THE BATTERIES!”

Other other other bedroom: “THE KITCHEN SMOKE DETECTOR SMOKE BATTERY IS LOW! PLEASE REPLACE THE BATTERIES!”

assume the basement one did too, but it was too far away for me to hear, which was the only mercy the universe granted me that morning.

Then, as if that wasn’t delightful enough, the kitchen smoke detector began its chirping. Remember chirping? That hasn’t gone away. Every. Thirty. Seconds.

It was a weekday, and on weekdays, I wake up at 5:30. But here’s the thing about getting woken up at 4:30: if you try to go back to sleep, your body says “nope, we’re sleeping until noon now, those are the rules.” So I laid there, listening to the chirp, counting the seconds between beeps (still thirty, after all these years), doing the math on how many chirps I’d hear before my alarm went off (120, if you’re curious).

At around 5:20, I gave up and dragged myself out of bed to replace the battery. And here’s where the engineers really outdid themselves. I put the new batteries in and:

“THIS IS A SMOKE DETECTOR! IT IS ASSIGNED TO THE KITCHEN! PRESS THE BUTTON TO CHANGE THE ASSIGNMENT!”

slight pause

“PRESS THE BUTTON TO TEST THE SMOKE DETECTOR!”

What a delightful way to start the day. I’m tired.

What I Wished For vs. What I Got

In my 2004 rant, I had some very reasonable requests:

• A clock that waits until 6 PM to alert me
• A motion detector that only beeps when someone is around
• Internet access to email me when batteries are low
• Cost no more than $19.95

What I got:

• Voice announcements (Careful what you wish for)
• At maximum volume (Nobody asked for this)
• At 4:30 AM (Also nobody asked for this)
• That wake up all seven detectors in series (DEFINITELY nobody asked for this)
• And cost way more than $19.95 (Of course)

You see, the engineers heard “talk to me” but apparently didn’t hear “use your indoor voice” or “wait for a reasonable hour” or “maybe check if I’m asleep.” Smoke detectors still only have one volume setting: EMERGENCY. Which, I suppose, makes sense for actual smoke, but seems a bit excessive for “hey, you might want to add AA batteries to your shopping list sometime in the next few days.” (You know, that IS one nice change, they’ve moved away from 9 volts to the much more common AA’s.)

The Setup Experience

I should mention that setting up these voice-enabled, room-identifying smoke detectors was about as much fun as you’d expect. Each one needs to be programmed with its location. And how do you program them? By holding down buttons while it screams at you about its various functions.

Remember, it only has one volume: EMERGENCY. So picture me, standing on a ladder, holding a button while this thing yells “THIS IS A SMOKE DETECTOR! PRESS THE BUTTON TO ASSIGN IT TO THE KITCHEN!” at full volume. Then the next one: “THIS IS A SMOKE DETECTOR! PRESS THE BUTTON TO ASSIGN IT TO THE KITCHEN!” <press> “BASEMENT!” <press> “HALLWAY!” <press> “BEDROOM!“

My neighbors must have thought I was running some kind of smoke detector training facility.

The Ten-Year “Solution”

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Todd, there are smoke detectors now with ten-year sealed batteries! Problem solved!”

And you’re right! They exist! The battery lasts for ten years! Of course, most people live longer than ten years [citation needed], which means you still have to deal with this nonsense eventually. Plus, and this is the part nobody mentions in the ads, after ten years you have to replace the entire detector. (Although, something this important maybe that’s the longest you should wait before replacing them?)

So instead of dealing with a $8 battery every year or two, you get to deal with a $40-60 detector every decade. The engineers have successfully taken an annual minor inconvenience and turned it into a less frequent major inconvenience. This is technically progress.

But more importantly, you still have the core problem: that ten-year battery is going to start complaining at some point. And when it does, is it going to wait until 6 PM? Is it going to send you a polite email? Is it going to check if you’re asleep?

No. It’s going to scream at you at 4:30 in the morning. (And unless you happen to have a cupboard full of spare smoke detectors, your only choice until you get a replacement is to turn it off, and not have a detector at all.)

What I’ve Learned

In twenty-two years, I’ve learned that smoke detector engineers have mastered exactly one thing: making sure I know when batteries are dying. They have not mastered:

• Timing
• Volume control
• Basic consideration for human sleep cycles
• The concept that not all alerts require the same urgency level
• Reading product reviews from the last two decades

But mostly, I’ve learned to be very, very careful what I wish for. Because somewhere, there’s an engineer reading this right now thinking, “You know what would make this better? If the smoke detectors could detect when you’re in REM sleep and specifically alert you then, because that’s when you’re least likely to ignore them!”

And in 2037, I’ll be writing “Smoke Detectors: The Rant Continues (Part 3)” about how my smart smoke detectors now integrate with my sleep tracker to wake me during my deepest sleep for maximum alertness.

The Dream Lives On

Of course, what I’d still like to see is a smoke detector with:

• A clock that waits until waking hours to announce non-emergency alerts
• Different volume levels for “your house is on fire” vs. “add batteries to your shopping list”
• Integration with home automation that doesn’t randomly unpair itself
• An understanding that if I have six smoke detectors, they don’t all need to announce the battery status of the one in the kitchen
• The ability to send a notification to my phone like literally every other smart device in my house
• AI that can determine whether I’m awake before screaming at me (we have AI for everything else now, surely this isn’t too much to ask)
• And I’d still like it to cost no more than $19.95 (adjusted for inflation: $32.48)

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

I probably am. The engineers are already planning their next “improvement.”

I’m going to go take a nap now. If my smoke detectors wake me, I’m converting my house to sprinklers only.

Originally ranted in 2004 on LauncherXPlanet forums, reposted in 2011 on this blog, and continuing to be relevant twenty-two years later because some problems never die—they just get voice announcements.