Post by @hembrow@todon.eu

2026-10-29 11:41 UTC

Today&#39;s irritating modern consumer device is a smoke detector. It&#39;s one of the modern type which comes with a built in lithium battery which is claimed to last for ten years. I bought this one in May 2022 and it failed overnight, so it actually only lasted slightly over 4 years. Not impressive. The intermittent &quot;replace the battery&quot; peeping noise began to irritate our dogs which was even more annoying than it would have been if it just irritated us. I had of course kept the receipt and even the box that it came in because I just wasn&#39;t sure that this thing really would last ten years, so this morning I took it back to the shop and they gave me a new one. Can&#39;t complain about the customer service as they were very straightforward about it. I brought the old one home to take a look inside and it is of course about as boring as they always are. The CR123A lithium cell still measures 3 V, so I don&#39;t know what it was complaining about. Perhaps I&#39;ll find something else to use that cell for. (This uses an optical sensor so there&#39;s no amusing radioactivity. On the other hand, an older ionizing detector which I keep around reliably produces a reading on my geiger counter) #rookmelder #smokedetector #enshittification

Replies (4)

@eq@mas.to 2026-10-29 11:52

@hembrow@todon.eu Wonderful with new tech. We live in a rental house with 12-ish apartments but it is owned by the state company with thousands of flats in the town. A couple of years ago they decided to modernise the fire detectors and replaced them all. So now we always know when a neighbours are cooking because the detector is in the kitchen and detects heat and smoke. The whole house can hear them and they get triggered by stove, oven opening, the toaster and so on... A day with no beeping is almost unimaginable. After a lot of complaints they have now changed them to normal smoke detectors with replaceable battery. Much more use since now they get to stay in the roof and not get taken down...

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@kim@fedi.social 2026-10-29 12:00

@hembrow@todon.eu Those things are why I wired our house for a full analogue addressable commercial building alarm system. Single, central lead-acid battery and a display that tells you where the fault is. Worth it for the benefit to my mental health not having to leap out of bed at 4am and attempt to triangulate the intermittent BIP!ing before it stops.

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@TimWardCam@c.im 2026-10-29 12:12

@hembrow@todon.eu I thought it was the radioactive device that necessitated replacing smoke detectors after ten years?

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@vees@jawns.club 2026-10-29 13:40

@hembrow@todon.eu Many have an end-of-life counter that will make them beep constantly ten years after first activation even if the battery is perfectly healthy

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