I have ‘dumb’ smoke detectors and I would like to be notified if they are triggered when I’m away. I don’t want to :
Spend $$$$ on high end smart smoke detectors
Buy Chinese crap
Lucky me, wyze cams have a setting for that. Well, it’s working if the detector is in the same room, but even the adjacent room with the door closed won’t work. Looks like they are only triggered if the amount of dB is insane. The event sound threshold slider is not linked to the smoke alarm feature, so even at 100, it’s still not working. Is there any plan to add this kind of slider for the smoke alarm ? Or to lower the threshold ?
Mine works from a couple rooms away but not if the door is closed. I’ve had them false notify when my washing machine makes a few beeps just the right way, so I have a feeling if they were any more sensitive, there would be too many false alerts.
You do realize that Wyze cams are made in China and are pretty cheap right? Cheap enough that you could add an OG or v4 cam closer to the smoke alarm to be able to pick it up.
Note that it usually takes 2-3 cycles of beeps before the cam will trigger a notification too, so maybe if you did a longer test it might pick it up?
I understand there may be false positives but at least they should allow users to decide whether or not to enable this option. Installing a new cam just for that is kinda dumb, extra wiring, ugly and I’m not a big fan of having a mic inside my house. I’ve already tested with 5-6 cycles, to no avail. But since wyze is apparently working on a smart smoke detector they will probably never implement it, oh well…
If you don’t want a mic inside your house, you’re not going to be able to use the smoke/co alarm alerts.
I also don’t want cams or mics inside my house so I have one near my front door and one near my back door (on the inside of each looking at the door), far enough that they’re not going to pick up conversations and will only see people walking in and out of the house, but they’re close enough to the alarms at the top of each stairway to pick them up.
But that’s my point, I have a cam just outside on top of the garage door, when the alarm goes off in the garage, it can be heard from the outside but the cam is not triggered…
Yeah between the door and the fact that the mic on the cam is directional, and I’m guessing it is facing the other direction, it just isn’t going to pick it up. Not even sure if cranking up the sensitivity would help.
Sounds like your going down the smoke alarm rabbit hole. I chased the rabbit a couple of years ago and learned more than I set out to.
This may stray off topic but when dealing with life saving technology I allow myself to veer off.
I’m getting up in the years and climbing ladders is no longer allowed. Of course the stupid 9volt batteries have to be changed every year or so or you are no longer allowed to sleep due to the chirp every minute or so.
My choices were to hire a handy person every year, pay them a couple of $100 dollars to swap out 8 batteries
Or
Find a technical solution. I chose this one. I assumed (I know what it means) that there must be a smoke alarm that uses rechargeable batteries. Our house is wired so if one detector goes off all of them go off. I figured that with a rechargeable battery they would always be “ready to go”.
This was a couple of years ago and I could “not” find a product that did this. What I did find was the following:
Most of the detectors now have 10 year life spans. At the end of life you toss the detector in the trash and replace. OK, so every decade or so your out a few hundred dollars and only have to pay the handy man every decade. Better than every year. I did find my solution as I did find a product that supported interconnecting and lasted 10 years. Yea, no more battery replacements. I contracted my handy person (our son) to replace the units. My problem was solved for at least a decade and I hope I’m still here when they need replacement .
Or
Spend a few dollars more and get detectors that interconnect wirelessly (not Wi-Fi). You do not need to worry about house wiring, even if you have it. I believe you could solve your issue inexpensively by initially purchasing 2 units. Replace the garage detector and a detector that is closest to the camera doing the listening. Now if one goes off, both go off. Decibels will increase substantially. Then as time and budget permit replace the other detectors. Your issue will be solved. Believe me, everybody will be notifying you. The dog, Wyze, Alexa, the neighbors and your better half🤣.
And you won’t have to change batteries for a decade.
Well, I want to be notified when I’m away. And I don’t have Alexa, so back to square one. The only alternative seems to be buying Chinese smart smoke detector…
A bit of confusion on my part. It seemed your issue was Wyze was not triggering on the alarm, not what Wyze did with the trigger. I reread your 1st sentence and you did say “when I’m away”. The remainder of the thread seemed to focus on Wyze not being sensitive enough to trigger the event.
My suggestion all had to do with making sure the trigger happened–not what was done with it.
Now that we’re on the same page can you say what you think should happen if the alarm is triggered while you are away. Should it push a notification to your phone (call), much as the Wyze doorbell can do. Should it text you. Blink the screen rapidly. Etc, etc.
Knowing this we might be able to make further suggestions.
Mine too I guess as the original post said it worked fine in the same room but not when the db level was too low due to a closed door… We both suggested increasing the db level by either moving the cam or in your case having more alarms trigger, which both are potential fixes for the original problem…
When it detects an alarm it sends a push notification and tags it as “alarm” in a different color from motion.
.