SMCO500V, Interconnect Battery-Operated Combination Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarm with Voice Alerts, 1-Pack

I have purchased a property that was lacking in the smoke alarm department and had no wireless interconnection and these were the first choice. They are very easy to pair and install. Fair warning though, they are loud. I wore my noise cancelling earbuds and even through those, I can clearly hear them. The quality is good, you can hear them clearly when they give the location of which one went off. These things are also very functional as I had unintentionally set them off less than a couple weeks of installation. They will save your life in a fire. I highly recommend getting these as they are worth the investment.

Update: A little cooking accident caused a lot of smoke (no fire). The nearest alarm went off properly, and all of the linked alarms went off as well. Silencing the alarm required holding down the silence button for five seconds or so, which silenced all of the linked alarms. This review is based ONLY on the installation and setup. I just installed 7 units. The installation is very easy...took me about 60 seconds per unit to install the mounting rings.. You'll need a Phillips head screwdriver and a drill with a 3/16 bit for the mounting holes. I'm pretty handy with tools, but there was nothing involved in this that a novice should have difficulty with. Follow the instructions for where they should be mounted. There is a "dead zone" where walls and ceilings meet. Smoke detectors are ineffective in that zone. The previous owner of my home mounted all of the old detectors right in the dead zone. Oops. The programming is easy IF you read the directions and follow them exactly. Women should do fine; men will probably have to try programming a couple times before they figure out which simple step they overlooked. (I got it on the second attempt.) If you are overdue for new bifocals like I am, you might need a magnifying glass. The programming took less than a minute per unit when I did it correctly. Use hearing protection while you are programming and and testing. Seriously. All of the units will be going off at the same time on the table in front of you. At 85 decibels each, it is extremely loud, My total project time for installing all 7 was about 45 minutes hour from opening the box to putting up my tools. My units are spread out over three levels of the house (one in the basement, two on the first floor, one in an upstairs hallway, and one in each of three bedrooms). No issues with them communicating with each other. I tested each one individually and made certain it was communicating with all the others just to be sure. Running up and down all the stairs 7 times was a good workout. Again, hearing protection is advised. I have no doubt we will all be awakened if we ever have a fire in middle of the night. I really like the voice feature. If I have an alarm I will not have to go running through the house to figure out where the problem is. It clearly enunciates which unit is going off. Hopefully I will never find out how they operate in an emergency. I will update if I have any operational issues.

I've used previous iterations of this Battery operated (Wirelessly Interconnected) Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Detector (w/voice) in the past and this unit (SMCO500V) lives up to its predecessor. It's simple to use and setup (provided instructions are read - to pair the units wirelessly to work together). - They're Loud...but Not too loud - thankfully. - The mounts are a standard design to other smoke detectors (that can screw into the ceiling apparatus) and thus no new mounts were needed to attach these units in my home. - Battery-wise: If these units function like their predecessors - I'm sure it will last for several months on the eneloop AAs which I have been using for smoke detectors over the years. - Battery drawers are easy to pull open and get the batteries out. Simply push upwards from the bottom (of the battery drawer) to release and swap your batteries. - Haven't experienced any false Alarms with these particular units yet...but will update this review if I do. - All in all, a good device that lives up to its predecessor 👍

Intertek Testing Certification on back of each detector (photo). Pairing and assigning room name not too complicated but suggest using ear protectors. Installed 8 in large house and they all go off at once. Mounting plates are approx 4 7/8", big enough to cover typical round ceiling box if needed (photo). More and more cities look for testing certification by UL or Intertek before passing permit inspections - even plumbing inspections. Both Intertek and UL have websites you can check to see if a particular product passed. I did not see any other interconnected detectors sold on Amazon (10/1/25) listed. If you're going to trust a smoke alarm to wake up your family in time to get out safely, might as well install ones that are tested and certified. Otherwise, why bother putting them in at all? I took off 1 star because they don't have enough rooms to choose from for voice notification feature.

Bought as a replacement unit. The item was delivered promptly and was able to sync with my other detectors easily.

I’ve had 7 of these detectors for about 6 months now. We are very happy with this system! They have gone off 3 times. Twice was in the kitchen when my kids overcooked breakfast. Was so happy to test them in that way. All detectors went off “there’s a fire in the kitchen!”. We removed the pan from the stove and fanned the kitchen detector with no problem. The third time it went off, my daughter left the window open in her bathroom on a cold day and took a hot shower. Then opened the bathroom door. A huge amount of condensation came out of the bathroom and the detector went off “there’s a fire in the hallway!”. As the condensation cleared and she fanned the detector it went off. My daughter was instructed not to leave the window open when she takes a shower. These detectors worked as we would have hoped! As far as set up - it was a little difficult and noisy. But we completed all set up in about 1/2 hour - with ear plugs. Lol! This was to replace a $3,000+ wired alarm system that we no longer wanted and needed to be replaced. VERY happy with this system!!

Our last house had hard-wired alarms which we had installed as part of a big remodel we did 20 yrs ago, 1 in each of 4 bedrooms, the hallway, the family room, the living room, and 2 in a very large home office/studio/work area. When we moved into our current place it had only 3 battery-powered alarms, 1 on each level, and I wanted the same reliability of connected alarms, but the cost of re-wiring was more than we could afford. I did some research and was hesitant about wirelessly-connected alarms at first, because the reviews didn't strike me as enthusiastic or that the alarms were reliable to the point of staking one's life on them. As time wore on my anxiety about having just the minimum number of alarms just nagged at me. I took a little gamble and ordered some of these. They were easy to install and easy to program. The also have a feature that lets you choose from a list of locations (that are common to most homes) to be spoken as part of the alarm, so you know the location/room of which alarm triggered the announcement. That's something even our hard-wired units didn't do. They use 2 AA batteries each, which are easy to replace simply be twisting/'unscrewing' the alarm unit from its' mounting plate. No screws must be unscrewed to replace the batteries, but they DO have a locking feature that is a plastic "pin" that comes as part of the unit and can make it difficult to open the battery compartment. You do NOT need to use it for the alarm to function, but it seems like something useful to landlords if renting out space. I did not use the pin to lock the battery compartment, as we're empty nesters and my spouse won't use a step stool yet alone a ladder. All mine are mounted on ceilings, so I need a step-stool/ladder to reach them, but they remove very easily. It's VERY unlikely anyone in our household is going to fiddle with the batteries. Know that the programming is a 2-step process when you are connecting more than 1 to the alarm "loop". The instructions were pretty easy to follow, and after connecting 2 or 3 units, you'll likely be able to do it without referencing them. NOTE THAT THE PROGRAMMING INSTRUCTIONS ARE ON A SEPARATE PAPER FROM THE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS. The documentation states that each alarm unit should be within 100 feet of the next nearest unit, likely more than adequate for most homes. I installed 4 in August of '23, and now, more than 8 months later, have had no false alarms yet. I like them so much I ordered more for additional locations throughout the house. (I'm a heavy sleeper and also am hearing impaired and wanted to increase the likelihood of hearing any alarm). Note, too that YOU DO NOT NEED TO PROGRAM THEM FOR CONNECTIVITY, but if you don't, you might do better buying single units without the communication feature. Pricier than "single" units, yes, but if you want the extra protection of connected units and you need/want combination Smoke/CO2 alarms and can't/don't want to spend the money for hard-wired units, , I'd recommend these.

I wish I could give this ZERO stars. I purchased these in February 2012. Dec. 22nd I awoke to the alarms going off. Fortunately we had discussed a fire escape plan with our children on what to do and where to go outside so that everyone could always be accounted for. So at 2 o'clock in the morning my children are outside barefoot in the freezing cold as I comb thru our home to search for any signs of smoke or fire...there were none. After about 20 minutes of thorough investigating I allow my family to return inside the house. At the time I could think of no other reason for the false alarm than either it is going bad or maybe the batteries were bad. I tossed the batteries (despite having just replaced them less than 2 months earlier) and put the alarm back up only to experience the same heart wrenching event two days later in the middle of the night on CHRISTMAS EVE! I contact First Alert and to their credit they immediately mailed me a replacement no questions asked. Fast-forward to 10/26/14 at 11:50 p.m. We are awaken by one of the alarms going off again! I search the house and ONCE AGAIN discover it is a false alarm. Half asleep and not thinking clearly I pull out the batteries and toss them and re-install new ones since we had yet to replace them until we set our clocks back for Daylight Savings Time. A couple hours later around 2 a.m. the alarm sounds again. At this point my family only staggers to their bedroom doorways assuming it is ANOTHER false alarm (and it was) and they wait for me to silence the alarm and return to bed. I removed the batteries and laid the alarm on the couch to take with me to work the next day to contact First Alert about the problem. When I contacted them this time they only told me that it was probably a small spider or maybe some dust and that the alarms must be cleaned every year to prevent false alarms. They advised me NOT to use compressed air from a can (some poppycock about chemicals in the can) but rather use a hairdryer on the cool setting...so I followed their instructions and LAST NIGHT a little before 10 the alarm went off again. My family didn't budge...they feel defeated and no longer even consider responding to our home's fire alarm. And when I discussed this with a co-worker they made a very good point about combination smoke and Carbon Monoxide detectors...Carbon monoxide detectors should be located near to the ground since Carbon Monoxide sinks while smoke from fire rises...which would make having a 2 in 1 unit seem ridiculous since the optimal locations for each type of detector are at complete opposite locations!