X-Sense Mini Smoke Alarm (WiFi)

The X-Sense WiFi smoke alarm tells your phone. It joins 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi directly, with no base station and no hub, and sends a notification the moment it detects smoke, whether you are downstairs or out of the country.

• What the X-Sense WiFi smoke alarm covers that a plain one does not
• It also reports the dull things
• Twelve accounts, no subscription
• The sensor and the body
• Which X-Sense to buy

What the X-Sense WiFi smoke alarm covers that a plain one does not

The empty house. A detector on its own is a noise in a room, and if nobody is in the building the noise reaches nobody. This one joins your Wi-Fi with no base station and no hub, and pushes a notification the moment it detects smoke, whether you are downstairs, at work or out of the country. The siren still sounds; the app is in addition to it, not instead of it.

It also reports the dull things

A fault, and a battery going low, both as notifications. This is the part people underrate. A smoke alarm that has quietly failed is worse than having none, because you have stopped thinking about it and you believe you are covered. Being told in the app, months before the chirping starts at three in the morning, is what keeps a detector actually working.

Twelve accounts, no subscription

The device can be shared with up to 12 accounts in the X-Sense Home Security app. For a rented flat that means the landlord, the caretaker and the tenant all get the same alert, and nobody depends on one person having their phone on. There is no subscription attached to any of it, which is worth checking against other connected alarms before you commit to a brand.

The sensor and the body

Photoelectric with a ten year life, so it responds to the slow smouldering fire rather than only to open flame. The battery is replaceable on this model, unlike the sealed interlinked version. It is 78 mm across and 48 mm deep and it is certified to EN 14604.

Which X-Sense to buy

If the priority is that everyone in the building hears it at once, the X-Sense interlinked alarms sound each other by radio with no network at all. If the priority is knowing about it while you are elsewhere, this is the one. Plenty of houses fit both: interlinked alarms through the bedrooms, and one of these where the phone alert matters.

On a Zigbee system, the Zigbee smoke sensor does the notification through a hub instead. X-Sense own site is x-sense.com.