You might be able to find new smoke detectors that are designed to fit in the old hardwired brackets -- call the company that makes your current alarms and ask if they make any new models that fit the brackets. That's what we did. If you don't have to rewire the brackets, it's super easy to swap them out!

You may not be able to get any that are combo with the CO detector, but we just put separate CO detectors - one on each floor. In fact, we just replaced one of our CO detectors because it had reached end of life: we got this kind -- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000...dt_b_product_details

People say it is supposedly better to have the kind that plug in the outlets because CO is heavier than air and sinks so it is better to have them closer to the floor. I dunno if that's really true but we've had that kind for years -- thankfully we've never had a situation that tested its effectiveness.

This post reminds me that we probably last replaced our smoke detectors in 2012ish so they are probably due again. Sigh. I do like having the hardwired kind - both for safety and because if one goes off in the basement, we might not hear it upstairs if we are sleeping. But with the hardwired versions, when one goes off, they all go off. (This is also kind of a pain because there's no clear indicator which one triggered the alarm!)

Also PSA - you should be vacuuming your smoke detectors regularly. Things like cobwebs, dust, and spiders can trigger false alarms (that always seem to happen at 2am, LOL!)

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Also PSA - you should be vacuuming your smoke detectors regularly. Things like cobwebs, dust, and spiders can trigger false alarms (that always seem to happen at 2am, LOL!)

Or just as you're leaving the house for a short vacation....

More on how Ting detects problems. It involves machine learning...

https://restechtoday.com/ting-...me-electrical-fires/

Ting is certainly responsive as far as order processing. My Ting device was shipped within two hours of my sign up with State Farm...

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But with the hardwired versions, when one goes off, they all go off. (This is also kind of a pain because there's no clear indicator which one triggered the alarm!)

I thought the current systems are set up to tell you which one triggered. I need to double check.

Re our new house, there are only three hardwired ones (and none in any bedrooms, it's not up to current code but probably meets the original code).

So I'm thinking we'll replace the hardwired with hardwired, and where we need to add ones that are currently not there, we'll add battery only. From what I can tell, we should be able to get the hardwired and the battery-only ones to talk to each other, but I need to double check.

I'll also follow up on Ting.

I'm thinking that what Lisa is describing is the problem that our handyman Mike encountered. If one alarm goes off, they all go off and you don't know which one started it.

We used to have wired smoke detectors, but they were connected to a central security system that also monitored doors and motion, and that was connected to a landline that would dial the monitoring service if an alarm was triggered. This is way before the DIY systems like SimpliSafe. And way before cell phones, for that matter. We've disabled that system and just have battery powered smoke/CO detectors in various places around the house. They do actually last 10 years, and chirp when they get to end of life.

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If one alarm goes off, they all go off and you don't know which one started it.

I am pretty sure I read that this exact problem is solved with the new ones... Maybe you have to have an app though?

I will look again and report back/share links etc.

Ok, here's one:

https://www.firstalert.com/us/...oice-alerts-1048448/

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Voice & location alerts tell you the location of danger to help you escape safely

I interpret that to mean that it tells you which one triggered the alarm.

This model might be one of their newest, Amazon shows it as first available in Oct. 2023, and there isn't any Q&A yet on the Amazon page.

I think maybe there's a slightly different pattern to the blinking of the one that triggered it for ours (again, they're old) but I can never remember the exact details .... especially at 2am when I'm standing there hands over my ears staring up at smoke detectors. We have at least 4 or 5 hardwired ones too, so it's a bit of schlep to walk around to them all. If the new ones actually tell you which one it is, that would be awesome.

Also, we don't have any in any bedrooms except for ours. We added battery powered ones to the kids rooms when they were little. We have a few others throughout the house - one in the laundry room, one near the woodstove. But they don't seem to have a definite end of life date either - I know some of them were purchased when we moved in in 2002. The CO detectors (even ones we bought at the same time as the smoke detectors) literally hit their 10th birtday, stop working, throw an error code, and start chirping incessantly til you replace them. But the smoke detectors don't do that. I don't know if they technically have an expiration....it would be something to research I guess. I know that when we replaced all our hardwired ones, it was because they were generating false alarms -- several in like a month -- and when we called the support line, the First Alert people said that meant they were ready to be replaced. The battery powered ones we have never have false alarmed so I don't know what that means.

Lisa, I don't know about the CO detectors, but I've been reading about smoke detectors and I am pretty sure that all of them need to be replaced after 10 years.

There are different kinds of sensors depending on the model, they use either ionization and photoelectric sensors (and some are dual sensors and use both).

Over time, they become less sensitive and so don't work as well.

Also, there should be either a manufacture date or expiration date (or both) on the back of the unit.

Which is to say, you should replace your units, probably asap.