

Google's Nest Stops Selling Smart Smoke Alarms Over Fire Safety Concerns - baptou12
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/googles-nest-stops-selling-protect-smoke-alarms-over-fire-safety-concerns-1443344

======
eik3_de
> "Nest can remotely disable the Wave feature"

How can I be 100 % sure that the "just beep when smoke" feature can't be
remotely disabled without my notice?

Intelligent home appliances are nice and all, but when the lives of your
family depend on it, I'd rather be on the KISS side.

~~~
raldi
How can you be 100% sure a bus driver won't crash into you when you're
crossing the street?

Would you therefore avoid streets?

~~~
Raphmedia
What are the chances some anonymous kid will cut the brakes just for giggles?
0.

What are the chance sone anonymous kid will cut your fire alarm just for
giggles? Pretty high.

Just take a look at 4chan and Reddit messing with people's internet security
cameras.

~~~
lanaius
When I was a kid someone slashed the tires and cut the brakes of all the
school buses. Even if it was to get out of school, that's a very fine line
between "just for a giggles" so while the probability may be small it's
certainly nonzero. I would put the probability of your two identified events
at closer to each other than you'd both expect and hope.

------
brey

      Nest has stopped selling its smart smoke alarms after it discovered a flaw 
      which could prevent the timely detection of fire.
    
      the company is not aware of any customers who have experienced it
    

this is disingenuous. you would expect this feature (detect fire and save your
life) to be used by a tiny, tiny percentage of customers. the fact that
nobody's experienced the failure does not make this situation any better.

it's like selling a car with a broken airbag. "well, it's not caused me a
problem, I don't see the issue ..."

(I'm not criticising Nest, they're doing the right thing. I'm saying it's bad
journalism to throw that in the article as if that mitigates things)

~~~
spuz
How is this disingenuous? How else is the reporter supposed to explain that
this issue has not been experienced by any customers?

~~~
lanaius
In an ideal world, the same way the person you responded to did (hopefully via
Nest themselves). "Nest is not aware of any customers affected by this flaw
though they stress/admit that this is potentially due to the relative rarity
of home fires."

------
sremani
I felt smoke alarm was un-natural product for Nest, but again they were the
men in arena and its their company - much respect there. I was anticipating
something like a device that lets timing for water heater and calibrate the
temperature etc. but I guess there are just too much variety of water heater
systems for that, but it would be cool and reduce gas bill and in a true nest
fashion would pay_for_itself.

But this device also show-cases how bringing "smartness" into safety devices
is fraught with risk and in the case smoke detector the convenience is not
worth the economics. The Nest thermostat was true win-win value proposition -
where as the Smoke detector is just not that.

------
M4v3R
That's very responsible of them. Even if it means lost sales, it seems a right
thing to do, and may ultimately give them a good PR.

------
_Robbie
Is there any more information on what exactly the problem was? From the
article it is unclear if this is a pure software bug, a UI problem, or
something else.

~~~
justincormack
More here
[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/83e63a02-bb7c-11e3-8d4a-00144feabd...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/83e63a02-bb7c-11e3-8d4a-00144feabdc0.html)
(registration required)

Basically the wave to disable alarm feature is too aggressive, and other
movements can disable it.

~~~
aestra
I remember when the smoke detector was first on HN. Some people saying wave to
disarm was a great feature and some were saying it was a terrible feature.

I guess terrible won out. It is still a scary feature to me in concept, even
if it wasn't broken. This is a safety device, it shouldn't be easy to disarm.

~~~
johnward
Old smoke detectors had this feature. You just take the battery out. I have to
do this to one of mine every time we use our broiler. I'm sure I'm not the
only person who ever removed a battery an forgot to replace it for awhile. At
least the nest feature is temporary.

~~~
deveac
_> Old smoke detectors had this feature. You just take the battery out._

The feature was having the detector _unknowingly_ disabled. A better analogy
would be the batteries in your smoke detector running out.

~~~
johnward
My understanding is that it's temporarily disabled by the wave. Is that not
the case? It's still an issue if a fire starts and you aren't alerted for 20
minutes but I'm curious.

------
coreymgilmore
Question: If this was a simple fix (disabling Wave) for a convenience feature
(waving instead of having to reach and hit a button), then why are they
stopping sales? It would seem logical to update all unsold devices to disable
Wave and continue on with sales.

Safety concern, slightly. Nest has made note that this feature have never been
compromised yet (then again, its the one time when the Wave does fail that
caused a huge issue so this point is null). Also, the Wave feature does not
affect the detection of smoke, only the resulting alarm.

I think there is something else going on here. Possibly a more serious safety
hazard. If a software update can solve the Wave issue, then why the stopped
sales? If there are stopped sales, why not a more serious email/note or a
recall?

------
nutate
Aww that's sad. What I liked about the Nest smoke alarm was that I could check
which of my various houses was on fire, right from my smartphone. Ugh, guess
will have to wait for version 2.0.

------
alistairjcbrown
_sigh_ I just ordered one of these and was really looking forward to it :(

As a safety device, it's a no brainer - I have to return it until it's rock
solid. I can't knowingly replace my existing smoke detector with one which has
the potential to under perform.

~~~
hugodahl
As a safety device, it performs to the standards that are expected. The issue
is with a "feature", which lets you silence the siren in situations where the
alarm is a false one. The siren can still be silenced by pushing the button.

~~~
alistairjcbrown
> it performs to the standards that are expected

The company have said it doesn't - there is a potential that the device will
not alert when smoke is detected because of a false positive when detecting
waving. The feature actively affects the performance if the device which is
why it is being disabled.

------
csmatt
Now this is a good April Fools joke (albeit a little late)

