Nest Protect 2

A couple years back we renovated our house and as part of it we needed to install smoke detectors. We went for the standard smoke detectors, nothing special. Two weeks ago the battery in one of them died and I didn’t have a spare battery lying around. Also, we hadn’t placed CO detectors yet. They are not yet mandatory but recommended. So while googling detectors and batteries I also had a look at the Nest Protect and read a couple of online reviews. They are expensive but finally I decided to buy one anyway. It sounds stupid but from a user friendliness point of view the Nest Protect is already far superior to other detectors out there for reasons I didn’t even think of before. For example, I know where to find information online for the Nest Protect. My other detectors are all different brands I don’t know and the paper manuals that came with it are long lost. Possibly they all work the same way but I don’t remember what certain beeps or blinking lights mean or how to have it perform a self test. Testing is automatically scheduled with the Nest Protect, no need for reminders to do it yourself. So far my experience is limited but installation went pretty smooth. According to the installation instructions no drill is needed for the supplied screws to attach the baseplate to the ceiling but in my case there was a hard concrete layer in the ceiling I needed to drill through. I could get the screws into the ceiling without drilling but not deep enough because of the concrete. But that would have been the same for any other detector. Connection to the network did require me to type in my password and could not be looked up for some reason but apart from that it went fine. Also Nest Protect and the app gave clear (spoken in case of the Protect) instructions on what to do and what was going to happen. As I already had Nest products adding the Nest Protect and having it go through its initial test took only a couple of minutes. One ‘active’ function that has already been used is the so called light path. When it is dark and you pass under the device it will light up so that you can easily find your way. Not sure if it will be a very useful function, we’ll see. I did like the fact that Nest Protect talks and announces actions like for example that it will test the siren and you should take some distance because of the loud noise. You can also check the history and status in the app or perform a manual test, no need to find a ladder to push buttons anymore. If you have multiple detectors the spoken alerts will tell you where the problem is detected and these messages will be communicated on all detectors. It can also distinguish between slowly developing smoke and a rapidly developing fire and will alert you accordingly. The Nest Protect combines smoke and carbon monoxide detection in one device and has added smart functionality which improves user friendliness. Is that worth the added price ? In my case I have to say yes as I have to admit I never bothered finding out again how to test my standard detectors and then dragging a ladder up the stairs to reach for the button, every month. I only bought one for the time being just to see if I was satisfied but I know that later in the year I will get a second one for upstairs so that a problem detected downstairs will also trigger the second device upstairs for added safety. If you want a more detailed review of the various functions you can find many reviews on the internet like the one (in Dutch) on appletips.nl.