Earlier this year, 440,000 Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detectors were recalled following the discovery of a critical safety flaw that could accidentally deactive the system. Today, Nest has put the Protect back on sale at a reduced price of $99—previously $129. However, the “wave” feature that allowed the user to disable the alarm with a hand gesture has been removed.
In the blog post announcing the return of the Protect, the company boasted some of its safety statistics and recounted the story of one Nest Protect user who was alerted to the presence of carbon monoxide in his home by the device, which saved his life. Nest’s Doug Sweeny writes:
We’re very pleased that Nest Protect is once again available to customers. And now, the price is $99 to make it accessible to as many people as possible. Because we want to see more CO emergencies end up the way Lucas Wollermann’s did.
However, without the wave feature, users must how rely on a hardware button to turn off the alarm. While that may not seem like a very big deal, the company is investigating new ways to approach this setting. A Nest spokesman told Engadget:
…the company is working on an easier way to silence the alarm, even if hand gestures aren’t the way to go (people might silence the device when they didn’t mean to).
You can once again buy the Nest Protect from the company’s website, now for only $99.
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I thought you could turn it off from the app…? Seems like a gigantic missed opportunity if you can’t.
At the very least can’t they just put in a microphone to listen for voice commands?
Voice commands won’t work so well when the device listen to you is also the one making a racket.
Maybe just a button on the app?
I’m holding off to see if ISO 8 will work with it.
Removed the wave feature, installed a couple NSA mics and cameras.
Sounds like Google bought themselves a $3 billion one-hit wonder. That’s one hell of a major oversight for a company dealing directly with consumer safety.
This is a non-starter at anything above $60 for me and I suspect a large number of people. The value proposition with the thermostat was easier to understand for most people, even if it was immensely overstated. For the CO and Smoke it’s a lot more to ask that someone install 3 or more of these in place of what’s already there or in place of buying alternatives at $20-50 each from companies that have a long track record helping to save lives.
I think one of their selling points was that with traditional devices, even well-meaning people would 1) forget to replace batteries 2) get annoyed by the battery reminder and unplug it or 3) get annoyed by the false alarms and unplug it.
The hand waving may have been a little TOO convenient, but the principle is right. Smoke detectors are pointless if they’re annoying and therefore ignored.