There is a solution for just about everything when it comes to building out a smart home. You can automate lights, plugs, security, HVAC, entertainment, and so much more. But what about fire safety? Earlier in the year, we spoke with FireAvert about a new smart solution for exactly this, and now we have been testing one of these solutions out to see if it really is as useful as it sounds. It is the FireAvert Z-Wave Smart Auto Shutoff Plug.
It is used to cut power to your electrical appliances if it detects a smoke detector going off. FireAvert also has one for gas appliances, which is capable of shutting the gas off to a stove. The company was started by Peter Thorpe, a career firefighter with nearly two decades of experience, who was concerned about statistics regarding how many fires at home begin in the kitchen. So these plugs are designed to help prevent or reduce these risks at the source.
It’s a simple smart plug that is placed between your appliance and the wall, like any other smart plug. Only this one is actually rated for your appliances, where most are not. It quietly sits there monitoring the room for any sign of a smoke detector going off. Listening for the unique sound of it, using a built-in microphone.
The company has already offered these in a non-smart format, but this new series allows you to integrate them with your smart home ecosystem, allowing for new interactions, such as notifications to your phone or the triggering of other devices or device power states.
The front of the unit contains a circular reset button (left), a status light (center), and the built-in microphone (right), which is designed to listen for smoke detectors. It’s pretty straightforward.
If the microphone detects a fire alarm sounding, it will cut power to your device as a safety precaution. When the fire alarm is turned off, it will automatically switch back on in about 5-10 minutes if it detects the device (ie, stove) is off. Otherwise, you’d have to manually reboot it to bring things back online.
For the gas version of this, it operates the same, only it would cut off the gas to the stove. It would require a manual reboot before gas is restored for obvious reasons, just in case there are any conditions in the environment that could pose a risk.
Looking back at the electric version that we have been testing, there is a plug located on both sides of the unit. This allows you to have two different appliances plugged in, as long as you are keeping below the max amperage of the plug.
When this is connected to your Z-Wave hub/ecosystem, it grants you the ability to see the current state of the devices and receive notifications when things occur, such as when it trips due to the detection of an alarm. You can also control the on/off commands of the plug from your hub.
The company provides instructions on how to pair it and the various features it supports with Z-Wave. These instructions also explain how to properly install or remove the plug, since you should turn off your breaker when doing this (the instructions say to never remove or install the plug when the outlet is hot). It also points out that you should always test it with the nearest smoke alarm to make sure everything works together.
Performance
So does it work? It sounds like a useful feature to have as it could help prevent fire risks in the kitchen or reduce damage caused by fires.
We paired the plug to Home Assistant, which acts as the Z-Wave hub (the HA server makes use of a Z-Wave adapter from Zooz to gain Z-Wave support) that we test a lot of products with. It paired easily, although we had to do it manually, scanning for it OTA, and verifying the code by the QR code since the QR code on the back wasn’t scanning with either phone’s camera (looks like the QR code was a little smushed and the pattern wasn’t fully displayed). Once it was paired, we were ready to begin testing.
We went into the employee break area, where we have several electrical appliances, ranging from microwaves to air fryers. We decided to place the plug between a multi-use air fryer/oven that made things easy to get to during our testing. The instructions say the device should be somewhere within a radius of 20ft from the nearest smoke alarm, and this worked perfectly since the nearest alarm was about 12 feet away.
We started a multi-use oven/fryer up with some stuffed jalapenos (nothing like having a little reward at the end of everything). While it was cooking, we manually triggered the smoke alarm test after placing it into its bypass mode with building maintenance present, so that it wouldn’t trigger the building’s safety/alarm system.
The moment the smoke alarm began sounding, the green light on the plug flicked on and off to red. Nothing too solid, as it was more like a twitch, mostly spending its time in green. The oven continued cooking. At first, we thought it wasn’t working. Maybe the soft audible coil whine the plug experiences if you get your ear close to it had something to do with it. This doesn’t always mean something is wrong, and in many cases is normal operation for some devices, but the variable crossed our mind nonetheless. But then, our brain kicked in, remembering that this is a smart plug.
So we pulled up Home Assistant to see if it saw anything. Upon looking at the logs/notifications section of the device screen, we saw that it was indeed recording alarm detection and the clear sign (when the alarm stopped sounding). Which means, for it to trigger, you have to create a scene that turns off whatever is plugged into it. So we did. We created a scene that responded to an alarm state as a trigger, which then turned off the plug like a normal smart plug. We tested the scenario again, and the plug turned off, cutting power to the oven. If this were part of their normal (non-Z-Wave) series that doesn’t make use of smart home protocols (Z-Wave), I’m sure it would have gone straight to turning it off. But in this case, having so much control over it via Z-Wave allows you to decide what happens when an alarm is heard by it.
From here, we moved on with our testing to see what other kinds of alarms it would hear. To do this, we pulled up various alarms on YouTube, including commercial and residential types. Outside of some unusual alarm sounds (some videos testing overly unique or old systems), most alarms triggered the alarm state within the activity screen, continuing this success rate.
We were a bit worried, since the fire safety system in this building is a bit advanced, that simply having an audible alarm go off could still trigger another, but thankfully, that isn’t the case (they still have to properly talk to each other or detect other triggers). The member of maintenance also assured us it would be safe to do, but we had kept our doubts regardless.
These new Z-Wave series products are launching this month from the company, starting around the time of this story. It may take some time before they begin popping up via online retailers as inventory populates, but you’ll likely run into them via the company’s website before anywhere else.
Our Conclusion
So what did we learn? We learned that it works! Not only does it work, but it responds to most, if not all, normal/modern alarm options in residential conditions (as well as many commercial), which is the most important variable in this review. Not only does it work, but it responds within just a few seconds. Beyond that, you are only limited by the speed of your network.
It is also easy to work with. Instructions for installing this specific model are the easiest, with the gas model being a bit more involved since it installs in-line between the wall and your appliance (stove/oven). Yet, I could only assume that the gas model would be just as friendly. In this case, it just says you should never plug or unplug it from the wall without the breaker being flipped to the off position. This could be due to sensitivity to arching or something that could deliver an unknown variable to everything.
The only thing missing is that it would be nice if it automatically cut power after so many seconds. Just in case your network isn’t responding for whatever reason. You can never have enough failsafes. Maybe it could be a hard switch on the side or a setting triggered internally by a setting within your Z-Wave hub’s interface.
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Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us, and we can let you know where to send the product, and we will try it out.
