Stay fire-safe with Nexia during Fire Prevention Week

Did you know that an average of seven people die in home fires every day in the United States? Or that there were more than 365,000 (1,000 per day) home fires in 2015? As Fire Prevention Week gets underway (Oct. 9-15, 2016), it’s a great time to take easy and affordable steps to help keep your family safe with Nexia.

This year, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reminds that smoke alarms should be replaced every 10 years. With the average U.S. home being than 30 years old, the odds are high that you might need to swap out your existing alarms.

Nexia-certified Smoke & Carbon Monoxide alarms from First Alert and Nest integrate seamlessly into your Nexia system to help keep you informed of alerts or low battery levels and can easily be programmed with automations that trigger additional warning signals. For example, creating an automation with a Linear Siren and Strobe Light or Linear Z-Wave LED Bulb can help increase the chances of alerting everyone in the house with signals they can hear and see.

The NFPA recommends that smoke alarms be installed inside and outside all sleeping areas and on each level of a home – including the basement. The NFPA advises that  best protection is from interconnected alarms so that when one is triggered, they all sound. Yet, they say most homes do not have hard-wired, interconnected alarms.

Nexia has certified integrations with both types: the First Alert Z-Wave Smoke/CO alarm is a standalone battery-powered alarm that communicates with Nexia over the Z-Wave network. Nest Protect is available in hardwired or battery powered versions, both supporting wireless interconnection to each other and communicating with Nexia over your local WiFi and internet connection.

Take a few minutes this week to inspect and test your smoke alarms. If they’re more than 10 years old, replace them with Nexia-certified alarms. In most cases, Nexia alarms are only a few dollars more than basic alarms.

If integrating smoke detection with the rest of your smart home isn’t convincing enough, consider this: Nexia will alert you when the smoke detector battery is getting low – and tell you which alarm it is – so you don’t get rousted out of bed in the middle of the night by a low-battery chirp and then lose sleep trying to figure out which alarm it is.