Has anyone experienced false alarms with these? I’ve experienced a few and there was absolutely no smoke in my house at the times they alarmed. Is it when the batteries get low? The Ring app shows all the alarms at 100% battery even though they’ve been up for months.
Hi @Drewmama. Where is your First Alert Smoke/CO2 Alarm located? If it is near any vents, open window or a bathroom, it could be causing the false alarms. If the dust from an open window/vent or moisture from a bathroom collect on the surface, you will need to wipe it down with a microfiber cloth to help mitigate false alarms. If this continues to happen, you may want to contact First Alert here.
We had a First Alert Smoke/CO2 Alarm activated while we were out of country and no one was at our house at the time. Unfortunately, the fire department was called. My daughter had received the alarm notification and attempted, from the ring app, to “deactivate the alarm” 3 times. Our First Alert Smoke/CO2 Alarm is in our basement, but 17’ from our furnace (which is behind a sliding door) and more that 8’ from any ceiling vents.
Hey neighbors. I wanted to share this Help Center article here with you. This allows you to cancel a Smoke Alarm from your Keypad within the first 30 seconds of the alarm triggering. This can be useful if your Smoke Alarm is caused by a kitchen mishap or something similar.
1 Like
My situation is similar. My smoke alarm is upstairs next to an intake vent. It triggered the system to alarm but the device itself never alarmed. Is this normal? Also I read here how you can clean it. How is this done?
I have experienced these as well in different locations in the house. The canned responses from Ring on how to cancel in 30 seconds and not mounting the detectors near vents is not helpful. People are having real issues here and looking for help.
FYI, these recurring false alarms are why I will not let Ring provide professional monitoring. I would already be racking up fines from the county/parish if they dispatched the FD every time this happens.
The system gave me four false alarms this morning and I finally had to disable the unit.
1 Like
Hey neighbors. If you’re receiving frequent false alarms from your First Alert Smoke/CO Alarm, I would highly urge you to reach out to First Alert’s support directly at 800-323-9005 for troubleshooting assistance. The First Alert Smoke/CO Alarm is not made by Ring, so we cannot advise on any troubleshooting outside of suggestions on the placement and ensuring the device is clean of any dirt or debris.
Additionally, you do have the ability to cancel a Smoke Alarm from your Keypad within the first 30 seconds of the alarm triggering. This can be helpful in the case of an accidental alarm from cooking or something similar. For more information on that, please review this Help Center article.
1 Like
Theoretically we gained an hour of sleep last night with DST. Our smoke/CO alarm had a false alarm at 2 am. I lost about 4 hours of sleep after Fire Dept coming to the house. 3rd and last false alarm Ring experience.
We will be getting another smoke/CO brand other than first alert and not link with Ring.
I just had this happen to me last night for the first time. The system has been installed for two years. The activity log showed that the smoke alarm triggered and cleared within a minute. The alarm is isolated on the second floor not near any vents, and the windows have been closed for several weeks.
When my detector goes off I also get the “fire” “fire” verbal warnings from the system. When I try to disable via the keypad it seems to take several attempts. Not sure if I should enter my code then the fire button or code then the check mark or some other sequence. Any suggestions on disabling process.
Hi @8Bucks. To cancel the smoke alarm, you need to disarm the Ring Alarm system. You would enter your pin code via the Keypad and select the Disarmed option.
1 Like
I have 15 Gen 2 First Alert alarms installed in my house. Over the past 2 years I have experienced over 10 false alarms in various locations. Each false alarm last from 1-10 seconds, no more. Each time I call Ring and First Alert customer support. Ring takes a total hands off approach, no support at all, because they are a 3rd party device Ring will not offer any support. First Alert gives me the same old story; check location (not near open flame, not near vent…) and must clean monthly (who in the world does this). I had First Alert, non monitored alarms, installed for over 25 years in the same locations prior to installing these faulty new alarms. I never cleaned the old First Alert alarms And I never had a false alarm, over 25 years without a false alarm. First Alert/Ring are not admitting that there is design issue with these devices. I am at the point now of pulling out the 15 alarms and replacing with non-monitored devices. These devices have a design problem and Ring and First Alert are not addressing the problem.
1 Like
This problem has not been solved And contacting First Alert offers no solution. There is design issue, both First Alert and Ring are not addressing. Please see my situation below. There is no way that I have no False Alarms with 15 old design First Alert detectors, but now after replacing with the Gen 2 Ring detectors I have experienced over 10 alarms in less than 2 years. That is a design issue, not related to location or cleaning or anything else. These alarms are not suitable for safety critical fire monitoring.
I have 15 Gen 2 First Alert alarms installed in my house. Over the past 2 years I have experienced over 10 false alarms in various locations. Each false alarm last from 1-10 seconds, no more. Each time I call Ring and First Alert customer support. Ring takes a total hands off approach, no support at all, because they are a 3rd party device Ring will not offer any support. First Alert gives me the same old story; check location (not near open flame, not near vent…) and must clean monthly (who in the world does this). I had First Alert, non monitored alarms, installed for over 25 years in the same locations prior to installing these faulty new alarms. I never cleaned the old First Alert alarms And I never had a false alarm, over 25 years without a false alarm. First Alert/Ring are not admitting that there is design issue with these devices. I am at the point now of pulling out the 15 alarms and replacing with non-monitored devices. These devices have a design problem and Ring and First Alert are not addressing the problem.
1 Like
Ring needs to get rid of the smoke/co2 alarms from first alert and partner with someone else. This kills your reputation. Just had this happen at 5am with me gone but the wife at home. She wants me to get rid of ring because of this. Smoke alarm triggered three separate times in 2 hours. I’ve had smoke detectors in that exact spot for 25 years with no false alarms.
1 Like
ring alarm user here - had this system for about a year and it has been good with no smoke false alarms until today out of the blue – false smoke alarm on the 2nd gen First Alert. Lucky I was home and also that now you can turn off the alarm < 30 seconds to prevent fire dept. (but not from the app apparently)
I’m thinking this could be a few things:
-
Recently I had replaced all the batteries with energizer lithium instead of the Duracell alkaline - I’ve replaced it again now with Duracell alkaline
-
I see a lot of users saying compressed air dusting may help – So I’ve now used compressed air to blow thru the vents of the first alert - I’m hoping this does it.
** But if I’m at work it will call the fire department! So for now I’m going to still leave it with batteries but temporarily remove it from the ring alarm system. If it stays good for a month I might pair it back in with the system we’ll see. I have a ring listener on the interconnected ones so maybe I’ll just start discarding the z-wave ones as they go bad.
Strangely I just upgraded all my interconnected Kidde smoke only to first alert BRK smoke/CO within the last few days of this false alarm - it should have nothing to do with the separate ring z-wave 2nd gen first alert but I wonder if it’s some type of radio interference??
1 Like
Hi @shawnwgates. Those were excellent steps to take when you get a false alarm on a First Alert Smoke and CO2 Detector! I do not think signal interference would cause the detectors to go off but in your testing if they do go off again within that month, try separating the new sensors you installed to see if that makes a difference.
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.