First Alert and CO/Smoke Listener Compatibility question

Hello, I tried to get the Ring CO/Alarm listener to listen to my First Alert SCO500B (I have 5 in the house all interconnected), but no luck. These models interconnect but are not Zwave and would require the listener. Unfortunately I tried 2 different locations and could not get the listener test to start. I checked and these each give off the T3 and T4 alarm codes, but there is also talking/announcements: “Warning, smoke detected in kitchen”. Is there a compatability issue with the SCO500B. I returned the Ring listener, but if they are compatible and I need to follow a slightly different procedure becasue of the annoucements, could you let me know.

Thanks. George

Hi @george27, is it possible that you could set your Smoke Alarms already installed in your home be able to make just the T3 and T4 sound without the announcement after? I imagine that since they have an announcement as well that this throws off the configuration of the Listener. If you are able to reach out to First Alert and see if they have this option for their device, it may be worth giving it another try!

Thanks Chelsea. The announcement is a good safety feature that I don’t want to turn off–for example at 2am, I will not only hear the alarm, but smoke or CO and location (there is smoke in the basement vs kitchen) helps me with an escape route.

I have one last idea for the listener test. If I were to put the listener next to the first alert during T3 adn T4, but pull it away during the annoucement, and I get that to work…will it have a negative effect on actual performance (meaning during an actual fire, it will not hear the alarm due to the announcement)? If it won’t, I’ll just wait for technology to change!

All the best. George

@george27 that’s not a bad idea! I would say if you’re willing to try it, give it a try. If it’s able to configure and says it was successful, then I would recommend just one more step. With it online, configured and all good, mount it up where you want it to go and near one of the smoke alarms as the directions ask. Then, make sure you are in Self monitoring instead of professional to ensure you don’t actually have the fire department come out from testing this. Once in Self monitoring, set off your alarm (with smoke blown out from a candle, whatever you have)! It will get loud, so make sure to warn the people in the home. :joy_cat:

If you set off the smoke alarm and it thus sets off the Ring Alarm, then you are good and know it will work for future! If it does not, then you’ve answered your own question and know it won’t be compatible in the end. If you do do this, and it does/doesn’t work, please let me know. That way I can pass this feedback onto our teams for our knowledge, or how we can improve it for the future!

I had a lot of issues getting my CO/Smoke Detector listener to work properly. I ended up disconnecting it, resetting it, and adding it back, and then it worked when testing. A few days afterwards, some smokey cooking set off the smoke detector in the kitchen which triggered all of them and my listener did it’s job and I received a call from Ring about 2 minutes later.

1 Like

That is my concern too. I have 5 less than 1 year old First Alert wired SC7010BV with voice. I have tought about replacing all of them and getting the zwave model, but really wished there was a wired zwave compabile model.

I thought about the CO/Smoke Listener, but i was too worried about the voice causing issues.

Another concern is that there were several reviewers on amazing complaining that just a chirping for a low battery notification was enough to trigger a smoke alarm on the listener.