Kurt Aaron tests out the Nest Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detector in "Does It Really Work?"
The maker claims it will detect smoke and carbon monoxide should either one appear in your home. It has an audible alarm that tells you what it's detecting as well as the ability to text your smartphone to let you know what's going on in your home.
It can be used for smoke and carbon monoxide detection.
To test nest, Newswatch 16 went to the Clarks Summit Fire Department.
Volunteer firefighter Jamie Kresge agreed to help us out. We start by reading the instructions and setting up Nest. A couple of things we noticed, first, Nest must have access to wireless WiFi if you want it to to text your smartphone.
Second, you have to download the Nest application to your phone for it to work. The app is free.
Third, the nest is clearly designed to work best with iPhone. However, it does say it can work with Android as well.
Kurt has an Android and Jamie has an iPhone.
It was easy to download the app but getting it to sync with a smartphone was a little more difficult.
Kurt's phone never showed it was in sync with Nest. Jamie's did. So his phone was used for the test.
First, it was tested with smoke.
As the Nest alarm was going off so were the phones. Text messages were sent to both phones.
Kurt didn't think the Android phone was in sync with Nest but as it turns out it was. The first alert said there was a warning that smoke has been detected in our home. The second text came about 30 seconds later when the alarm started going off.
This text was red indicating there is a fire happening.
Jamie cleared the smoke away from the alarm and a minute later there was a third text. This one said, the smoke is clearing. We were impressed!
The next test is for carbon monoxide detection. For this test we put the Nest near the exhaust of one of the fire department's trucks. They turned the engine on, and in about 15 seconds received an alert.
The text message not only alerted us that carbon monoxide was detected but it also detected the level, 1000 parts per million.
When Jamie hushed the alarm, they received another message telling us the alarm had been hushed.
After all was said and done, the Nest Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detector got two big thumbs up!