In Use (continued):

The device was easy enough to connect to SmartThings, but I did not have a proper device handler installed at the time, so it was added as a "Z-Wave Sensor". As mentioned, I contacted The Smartest House and they quickly directed me to this rather new third-party device handler by erocm123 over at GitHub. I have other device handlers by erocm123, and all work well. This one looks to be no different, as once configured the Firefighter looks like the three other Z-Wave smoke detectors I have in my home. The screenshots below show the applicable pages in the SmartThings mobile app. Pressing any of the test buttons on my interconnected smoke detectors triggers them all to beep, and the Firefighter picks up on the sound from the one in the basement and SmartThings hub reacts appropriately.



I have my smoke detectors conected to ActionTiles as well, and while the status of this one was a "?" before the first test triggering, after that the tile for this detector quickly responds to "smoke" and "clear" statuses.

Conclusion:


The Ecolink Firefighter Z-Wave Plus smoke and CO audio detector is one of those home automation devices that people might not get too excited about, but to me it is an excellent device that could be of great use to plenty of home automation do-it-yourselfers. While there are plenty of approaches available to get smoke and carbon monoxide detection integrated into your Z-Wave infrastructure, this is a simple and affordable way to tie in an existing whole-home system. It allowed me to keep my seven traditional interconnected smoke detectors in place and functional, while adding that extra layer of protection thanks to SmartThings.



The Firefighter comes pre-programmed to work with smoke detectors, but they can be setup to react to the distinct audio produced by a CO detector. Those instructions are provided in the included manual, and the third party device handler includes hooks for that to work with SmartThings. While the device handler is a third party solution, it works great, in my opinion. It is in its early days, and perhaps there will be some continued development to keep an eye out for. That said, one downside to having to go to a third party for a device handler is that the execution is performed in the cloud. My First Alert 2-in-1 CO and smoke detectors have native support in SmartThings and the device handler executes locally. This is important because if the Internet is down, a local device handler will run, but a cloud based one will not. A smoke detector is something you need to work every time, so local execution is obviously better. But, I recognize that it is not only for use with SmartThings, and other systems would feature local control. The Fibaro HCL is also on the compatible list, and since that device ONLY offers local execution of commands, the Ecolink Firefighter would be handled locally.

The Ecolink Firefighter Z-Wave Plus smoke and CO audio detector solved a problem I was having with my smart home environment, and allowed me to integrate my whole home smoke detectors with SmartThings with minimal effort and minimal money laid out. For these reasons, the Firefighter earns the Bigbruin.com "Great Idea" and "Recommended" awards.



Pros:

» Can listen for smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector audio alerts
» Sells for about $40, which makes it competitive with other smoke detection solutions
» Easy physical installation and Z-wave pairing process

Cons:

» SmartThings device handler executes in the cloud; something as important as a smoke detector should execute locally

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