Ooma Forums

I love this idea on the ooma home security system and would get it in the second IF it offered smoke alarms as well. Why is this missing from the system?

Thanks!

Liability?

Why would there be Liability? You have a system simply calls your cell phone if the monitor sensor, water sensor, door sensor or smoke sensor goes off. How is that a Liability to Ooma? The security end of it could be just as much a Liability as a smoke detector.

The system is being marketed as "Ooma Home SECURITY". I'm sure a lawyer would be happy to file a claim against Ooma if a smoke detector failed to alert a customer and his house burned down. I used to have an ADT system and you wouldn't believe what you have to agree to which makes ADT devoid of any liability.

Good point. But I think the jest of the whole system is to notify you when you are not at home...thus the point of it contacting your cell phone. I don't think anyone would really rely on a system to notify their cell phone while they were sleeping to wake them up. That is why systems have audible sirens and stuff. Anyways, it would be great if they would add a smoke detector option that could be monitored while you were not at home.

Probably the same reason why Nest had significant issues with introducing their smoke detectors. There are lots of "requirements" around detectors because of the jurisdictions involved and hence the liability is great and hoops even greater. Just because a company can "break thru" the communication's "monopoly" doesn't necessarily mean it can get thru other areas with the same "success".... at least not in the near term.

Standby... it may or may not be on the way

No doubt a smoke detector will eventually show up. In the meantime, I could see a crafty person taking the voltage output to the horn from a smoke detector, using it to trigger a relay, and have the relay complete the circuit of an Ooma WATER detector. Just add it as a 'SMOKE DETECTOR' on the app.

I don’t know why there wouldn’t be smoke and CO sensors in the future as I sure many companies would be happy to make detectors for Ooma. The liability argument would be more reasoned if someone got hurt by an intruder or drown by a flood because of a motion / water sensor malfunction. And at least smoke / CO detectors have self contained built-in sirens that do not require the rest of the system to function while no other sensor has a self contained alert.