‎Smoke detector did not alarm but the fire dept was dispatched and our house alarm was tripped | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
susanellsberry's profile

Sunday, December 4th, 2022 4:19 PM

Smoke detector did not alarm but the fire dept was dispatched and our house alarm was tripped

Last evening our house alarm was triggered and the Fire Department dispatched to our home without us hearing the smoke alarm. The alarm is right outside of our bedroom door and there is no way we would not have heard it had it actually been tripped by smoke. When we called this morning to discuss what had happened, the representative had us go through the requisite steps to ensure proper functioning of the smoke detector. When we started, the red light was not flashing, nor was it flashing in the kitchen smoke detector. Effectively we've been living with non functioning smoke detectors for an unspecified amount of time which is quite terrifying and antithetical to why we have the system in the first place! We have an older system and apparently the base station may have been responsible for not communicating with the smoke detectors properly and tripping the alarm. Why don't the smoke detectors automatically convert to battery if the system is down? Or do they? This seems like it could quite literally be a fatal flaw in the system. 

Community Admin

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242 Messages

2 years ago

The Smoke Detectors will always be operating, so long as the battery life of them is maintained. This operates independently of the Base Station, however, the Base Station is needed for dispatch and generating the overall system alarm. 

First, we do recommend regularly cleaning your Smoke Detectors to avoid false alarms. You should clean it out roughly every month to ensure that it is clear of dust or debris. Next, it would be recommended to check for system updates to make sure that you are running the latest firmware for your system overall. You can do this with the steps here.

Let me know if you do require further assistance with your system. I'd be more than happy to help.

(edited)

Captain

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6K Messages

@alexandria_c​ Six months?? I thought my owners manual said every other month; can you reconfirm? If so, I can save myself a lot of time and cans of compressed air!  (Actually, cleaning the smoke and C0 sensors(all 8 of them) is pretty easy and done in 15 minutes) :-)

Community Admin

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242 Messages

@captain11​ Apologies for the mix up, it is every month. I've updated my reply to reflect that.

Captain

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6K Messages

No problem. For the record, I have done it every other month since I got my system, using cans of compressed air. Next question, the manual says to take the battery out; I have never done that and never had a false alarm after the cleaning process. 

On another note, the instruction manual, as far as I could see, is not available in the support center for download (pdf).  I suggest it should be and added. Videos are nice but of little use if you want to refer to it at the sensor location.

(edited)

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