Zigbee Smoke Sensor (Tuya)

A Zigbee smoke sensor that tells your phone as well as the room. The alarm sounds at 85 dB or more where it is fitted, and at the same moment a notification goes out, so a fire that starts while the house is empty is not discovered by the neighbours.

• The notification is the whole reason to buy a Zigbee smoke sensor
• Photoelectric, and what that changes
• It can act, not only alert
• The battery says something before it dies
• What it needs, and what else to consider

A Zigbee hub is required and is not included.

The notification is the whole reason to buy a Zigbee smoke sensor

It sounds at 85 dB or more in the room it is fitted in, like any detector. What it also does, at the same moment, is push an alert to your phone. That covers the case that ordinary detectors handle worst: a fire that starts in a house with nobody in it, in a shop after closing, or in a flat while the family is up-country. Without the notification, the first person who knows is whoever happens to be walking past outside.

Photoelectric, and what that changes

The sensing element is photoelectric, which responds to the slow smouldering fire rather than only to open flame. That is the fire that starts in a socket behind a sofa or in a mattress, produces a great deal of smoke and very little light, and does most of the killing. It monitors about 3 metres in front of it, so plan one per room rather than one per floor.

It can act, not only alert

On the same app as everything else, smoke can be the trigger for other devices: cut a plug, turn on the lights along the way out, set a siren going in a bedroom at the other end of the house. A detector that can only make a noise where it is fitted is doing about a third of the job it could.

The battery says something before it dies

Low voltage is reported in the app rather than announced by that chirp at three in the morning that makes people pull the cell out and forget to replace it. Zigbee draws very little, so it is a rare event, and it goes on a ceiling or high on a wall.

What it needs, and what else to consider

A Zigbee hub, not included: the Tuya Zigbee gateway or the version with an IR blaster. Add the Zigbee siren to have it heard elsewhere in the house.

If you would rather have detectors that sound each other with no hub at all, look at the X-Sense interlinked alarms. On Z-Wave, the Fibaro Smoke Sensor is the equivalent. Tuya, whose platform the app runs on, is at tuya.com.