Not your typical review on Phoronix today but rather a brief look at the Gentex PLACE Any Space smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors. For those facing ten years on their Nest Protect smoke detectors and looking for an end-of-life replacement to these smoke detectors discontinued by Google, the Gentex PLACE smart smoke detectors are an interesting and capable alternative. Being faced by needing to find a replacement to Nest Protects myself that have now expired and finding many others in the same boat with no clear winning smart smoke detector right now, I decided to go with the Gentex PLACE and figured it worthwhile to share a bit of my experience.
While ten years ago I had issues with all my Nest Protect smoke detectors having a false alarm, Google ended up replacing all of my units with the second-generation Nest Protect. Over the past ten years all of those units worked flawlessly without any false alarms or other troubles. Earlier this year Google sadly discontinued the Nest Protect smoke alarm and no longer offering new models in retail channels. With a ten year expiration on smoke detectors, mine expired earlier this summer and unfortunately there was no clear front-runner for a replacement smoke detector.
Since Google discontinued the Nest Protect, they endorsed the First Alert SC5 Smart Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarm. It’s convenient in using the same power connector as the Nest Protect, but when reading customer reviews of the First Alert SC5 I was very disappointed. There are many reports of false-alarms plaguing SC5 units. After seeing the countless reports of these issues with the First Alert SC5, I stopped considering them as a suitable replacement.
With some of the other smart smoke detectors being strictly battery based and not hard-wired and many from off brands with little history, I considered going back to a trusty Kidde or First Alert “dumb” smoke detector… More reliable it seemed and cheaper. But the smart detector convenience of remote notifications and my wife wanting (or rather, demanding) smart smoke detector replacements led me to doing more research… In the end I went for the Gentex PLACE Any Space PL1AS and Gentex PLACE Kitchen PL1K smoke detectors. The “Kitchen” PL1K model having natural gas detection capabilities as well, useful for a kitchen or utility/furnace room.
There were just a handful of customer reviews on the Gentex PLACE units when ordering them a few weeks ago and no professional reviews, but given the long history of Gentex in the industrial/commercial fire protection space for decades, I decided to go with trying out the PLACE smoke detectors.
Continue on reading more about the Gentex PLACE Any Space.
