
Nest Labs Stops Selling Its Smoke Detector - wrongc0ntinent
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/technology/nest-labs-citing-flaw-halts-smoke-detector-sales.html
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henry120
I think it's a very responsible move. Learn from GM's mistake of not promptly
recalling faulty products. Short term loss, but long term gain of consumers'
trust.

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morcheeba
Dear GM customer,

During recent laboratory testing of 2003-2007 Chevy Cobalts, we observed a
unique combination of circumstances that caused us to question whether the
ignition would improperly turn off during an accident.

We feel that the best and safest thing to do is to immediately disable the
ignition-off feature to resolve the issue and remove any safety concerns.
While we fix 2003-2007 Cobalt, please, under any circumstances, do not turn
off the ignition of your car. We suggest calculating the amount of gas needed
for a particular trip and adding only that gas to the fuel tank. At the
completion of your trip, allow your car to automatically turn itself off when
the fuel is exhausted.

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userbinator
Already discussion on that happening here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7526682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7526682)

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jlgosse
Sensationalist title,

"... in a letter posted on Nest’s website that it would stop selling the
product, Nest Protect, until it fixed a problem with a feature that lets
people temporarily disable the alarm by waving their hands in front of the
detector."

It isn't even like they're halting production, just sales.

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tdicola
Ouch, I wonder if the fix will be to pull the feature. Kind of a bummer but I
can understand there's probably a huge liability issue when it comes to smoke
alarms.

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dm2
It's not like they're defective.

Under certain conditions (like the unit being mounted low on the wall) and
with multiple people running by the sensor, it might register it as a wave and
silence that unit.

I've used the devices for a while and the convenience of not having the 3am
chirp is worth the risk of the alarm being silenced by me running out of the
room.

~~~
wdewind
Question for you: is there anyway for you to continue using them and keep this
feature on? Or does it only work if you have it connected, and if you have it
connected Nest can push updates to it?

~~~
dm2
Yes, absolutely.

The wave bug isn't an issue for me at all.

The issue is that there is a very slim chance that the alarm will get hushed
if people run by the unit repeatedly and the device is mounted in an odd place
(like lower on the wall).

~~~
wdewind
So you're going to leave the wave feature on then?

~~~
dm2
The Wave feature was remotely disabled by Nest.

"Within 24 hours, Nest Wave will be automatically disabled. You don’t need to
do anything and even with this feature disabled, our smoke alarm will continue
to work very effectively, monitoring for increased levels of smoke and CO in
the home. "

[https://nest.com/letter-from-the-ceo/](https://nest.com/letter-from-the-ceo/)

It's just too risky for them to leave the feature on considering the product
is a general public safety device. One death with Nest Protects would be
disastrous for the product and the brand.

It's also important for home automation in general to prevent loss of life in
these early products. Look at what happened to Tesla and the fires, the media
makes small issues with new technology appear to outweigh all of the benefits.
The media isn't running a story every hour on the new 1/2 inch plate of
titanium which, to me, is extremely awesome, but that's just how press
coverage goes right now.

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guelo
Isn't the wave the main selling point?

