By Andrew Liszewski
Smoke alarms are primarily designed to wake and or/alert people in a building that a fire has broken out (or that their chocolate chip cookies are burning) so that they can safely escape in time, and contact the proper emergency services. But the Firetext goes one step further. It actually features a SIM card slot, and when it detects smoke it will send a text to up to 4 different numbers. I assume it’s meant as a way to alert people to an emergency situation when they’re away from the building where the detector is located. As opposed to providing a more effective way to alert our generation of a fire, who seems to have developed a knee-jerk ‘gotta check it right away!’ reaction to their phone’s ‘new text message’ alert. Even when dead asleep in the middle of the night.
It’s still powered by a standard 9V battery, which is good for about 36 alarms. But in the hopeful event that it never goes off, on a single battery it should stay vigil for about 5 years. And it’s available now for ~$144 (£89.99) plus the cost of the SIM and your local carrier’s text messaging service I presume.
[ Firetext Smoke Alarm ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]
Lovely idea, but this is a concept that should be on all fire alarms. Good job to Firetext to be the first ones to come up with it.
It’s a really good idea. I would definitely consider purchasing an alarm like this.