Frequent, irritating false alarms – because the alarms cannot distinguish between cooking smoke and fire smoke – have prompted many frustrated people to simply remove the batteries, putting themselves in danger.
They are certainly next to useless if no one is at home when fire breaks out.
If fire-safety technology has traditionally progressed at glacial speed, then the internet of things (IoT) has heralded a dramatic leap forward.
And this doesn’t just mean more sophisticated fire alarms; IoT companies are now introducing cameras to the mix.
The benefits of visual verification – where a camera recognises the sound of an alarm and records footage for the homeowner to verify that fire has indeed broken out – were illustrated powerfully in one instance reported by IoT innovator Netatmo.
When fire broke out at the home of one of the French company’s customers the property was saved from destruction despite the fact that no one was home at the time.
Father-of-three Christophe was particularly grateful to his fire alarm and Netatmo Welcome AI camera given the fact his two dogs were in the house when the fire, which was caused by an electronic toy, broke out.
“While my family and I were attending a basketball game a few kilometres away from home, I received a notification on my smartphone reporting that our fire alarm had been triggered,” said Christophe. “I immediately checked the video filmed by Welcome and saw that a fire had started in our living room.
“The firemen were instantly alerted and were able to prevent the fire from spreading. It’s thanks to Welcome’s accurate alert that our house and our two dogs were saved from the flames”, he adds.
The Netatmo Welcome camera can detect sounds emitted from smoke, fire, CO2 and security alarms, instantly alert the user via smartphone and send a video for visual verification. This can also gives emergency services situational awareness before they arrive at the scene. If it’s a false alarm then they needn’t waste time arriving at the scene at all.
It’s reasonable to surmise, then, that smart technology could bring down insurance premiums, with policies tailored to smart home owners beginning to emerge.
Harnessing artificial intelligence (Netatmo claims its algorithm is inspired by the architecture of the human brain) the camera also has facial recognition technology, recognising family members and alerting them if an unfamiliar face is encountered.
Founded in 2011, Netatmo is a French company that specialises in IoT products for the smart or connected home.
The company has also released an outdoor security camera, Presence, which detects and reports on people, cars and animals.
The Netatmo Thermostat for Smartphone, meanwhile, offers remote control of heating via smartphone. Monitoring homeowners’ daily routine it can slash energy bills by 37%, according to Netatmo.
The Netatmo Weather Station for Smartphone measures CO2 and other environmental pollutants in the home and monitors temperature and other climatic parameters outside the home. It is the world’s largest collaborative weather station network.
In November 2015 Netatmo, whose products are available on Amazon UK and John Lewis, completed a series B funding round of €30 million. The company previously raised €4.5 million in 2013.
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