Pause for Smoke/CO listener

Would be great to have a simple “Pause” feature for the smoke/CO listener. Would be best if it could be activated via the keypad (enter code and then the check button) or just pushing the button on the listener (without requiring the app). Currently, if I notice food starting to smoke I have to run around my house to find my phone, put the listener into test mode and hit the button on it. Then, if the smoking food, etc. doesn’t actually set off the alarms, I have to do it anyways in order to complete setup. Normally, it’s just a big hassel and requires my attention to be devoted to that instead of my burning food; however, it could easily turn into a false report to my FD if I’m unable to get to my phone in time to answer the call from the monitoring center or if it’s just my wife home, etc.

There should be an option to disable automatic dispatch when the alarm is disarmed, and/or some means to cancel the fire response. If I had the fire department come to my house every time my downtstairs smoke detector went off, they might as well move the fire station across the street. (On the other hand, it might solve the problem with unruly street parking in my neighborhood; the fire trucks tend to remove mirrors and occassionaly doors.)

A sleep (time based) and/or disabled function that could be applied to smoke but also motion or other sensors would be incredibly beneficial.

My example is I can’t add the smoke listener to my house because of how sensitive smoke detectors are in new homes (before they moved code out of putting them in kitchens) and how something as simple as something falling on the oven (frozen pizza chees…) could set it off.

Which means I either get to play roulette with the 30 second disarm function or not install it all. A sleep function where I could shut the sensor down for 30 minutes even would allow me to install this functionality.

I discovered a dangerous flaw in my Ring security system today and I want to alert everybody in the hopes that Ring will fix it before homes and lives are destroyed. Both Ring techs I spoke with who confirmed the problem advised me to report it in this community forum. My problem concerns how fire and carbon monoxide alarms are reported to authorities (if you, like me, pay for that service) and the fact that Disarming your Ring system will NOT disable fire and carbon monoxide alarms AND, in the event of a carbon monoxide alarm, they cannot be called off no matter what - even when Ring calls and you tell them it’s a false alarm. False alarms mean that I lose at least 30-45 minutes of my day, firetrucks come to my home with a narrow twisting driveway and invariably damage my lawn and driveway, and in many jurisdictions you can be fined/penalized/terminated for false alarms. I also feel like a fool - especially when it happens multiple times a week. So please let me tell you my situation and why this is a dangerous situation as I know there are probably thousands in a situation similar or analogous to mine.

Our home is heated by 2 wood stoves. Occasionally, a down draft occurs when we are loading them that causes the smoke and/or carbon monoxide detector to go off. This happens even if the system is disarmed. Techs confirmed to me that this is how the system is supposed to work. They told me there are only 3 ways to temporarily disable these alarms while we load wood:
1. Unplug the base unit, remove it from the wall, open the battery case (requires removing a screw) and remove the battery backup.
2. Turn off my home’s wifi so that the alarm devices cannot talk to the base station.
3. Remove the alarm or listening devices from the app and then reinstall (in my case this also requires a ladder!)

WTF?!?! We have to check/fill our 2 woodstoves 5-10 times a day when burning at full tempo in very cold weather. (Other people might do wood-burning crafts, sawing, or soldering that trigger false alarms.) What normal person is going to want to do any of these options even daily? None of them are easy and since my wife and I both work from home we cannot afford to interrupt wi-fi service or wait sometimes 7-10 minutes for it to reboot.

So, what will most normal people do? They might try one or more of these solutions and forget to reverse it, resulting in a fire that destroys their home and possibly kills them. Or, like me, they will finally get fed up and just remove the devices and risk the outcome they primarily purchased the system for in the first place while continuing to waste money on monthly monitoring all winter long.

One tech told me I could kluge-wire my own switch onto the wire connecting the battery to the base station. That way I can unplug the base station and throw one switch to temporarily disable the system. But it requires tampering and drilling and an ugly solution which violates the warranty (not applicable to me as my warranty is over). So, I actually plan to do this (already ordered a small switch), even though it does not remedy the danger that I or my wife might forget to turn everything back on. I suspect like many, if not most people, the Ring Base Station is not out in plain sight. Ours is tucked into our laundry room near our garage entrance. So, yeah, we might die. Thanks Ring!

The solution to me seems obvious. Ring needs an easy to access temporary disable button (in the App and on the Base Station) that automatically turns the alarms off and then back on after say, 5 minutes (or duration pre-set by user). Or, it could simply delay reporting to authorities unless countermanded by the owner within a certain time (so the owner will still hear alarms if there might really be a problem). That can work because our alarms normally go off by themselves for only 1-3 minutes - but by then it is too late - the authorities are notified. So the alarms could still sound if something bad happened but they would not be reported until the user-preset delay ended (which could itself be temporary and require user reset to continue)

I think Ring should do something about this immediately. I mentioned this today to my brother who was considering the Ring system like I have. He also happens to be a lawyer. He asked me to send a screenshot of this post to him at his firm and he intends to investigate whether Ring customers may have already been harmed due to this oversight/poor design. He told me Ring/Amazon would bear significant liability in a class action suit too, especially now that this post is putting Ring on notice. He also told me to forward this post to appropriate contacts at the corporate office. I have not found any such contacts yet and would appreciate anybody reading this post to let me know who needs to read it and how I can get it to them ASAP. Thanks for reading!

1 Like