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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

A friend of mine, a great cook, regularly performs what she refers to as The Dance of Smoke Alarm Supplication, wherein she and a broom jointly try to persuade the alarm gods that everything is fine. When she heard that there was a smoke alarm that would pop up a notification on her phone first so she could mute it with zero shrieking, she was very excited.

It may be that her landlord installed it wrong, but landlords (and homeowners) install an impressive number of things wrong, so a business that didn't depend on "amateur does X perfectly" doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.

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Ah, the Smoke Alarm Supplication Dance. Great term. My wife and daughter had the same issue. They like to cook and can tomato sauce. Our smoke alarm would go off very easily - lots of false positives. One day my wife is vacuuming the hall and the motor in the vacuum cleaner overheats and starts putting out thick, black smoke right under the smoke alarm. Nothing from the smoke alarm... Needless to say we quickly replaced both the vacuum cleaner and the smoke alarm and made certain to get one with dual sensors...

> A friend of mine, a great cook, regularly performs what she refers to as The Dance of Smoke Alarm Supplication, wherein she and a broom jointly try to persuade the alarm gods that everything is fine. When she heard that there was a smoke alarm that would pop up a notification on her phone first so she could mute it with zero shrieking, she was very excited.

The Dance of Smoke Alarm Supplication can still apply to smart smoke alarms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY

I don't know why this was downvoted; I thought it was very relevant.

Yes the landlord installed it wrong.

However in what scenario does a landlord install a £100 smoke alarm when s/he can install a £10 one though? No landlord I've ever had would have done this -- given that over here bills are paid by the tenant a thermostat is usually not provided.

Homeowners can at least move them when they realise they have installed them wrong.

Some landlords will install a £100 smoke alarm when they realize that they can get real-time notifications that one of their buildings is on fire. Others will do it as a fancy feature to attract higher-paying tenants.

And when the price falls to £30, as happens with these things, a lot more will do it.

>Some landlords will install a £100 smoke alarm when they realize that they can get real-time notifications that one of their buildings is on fire.

Not even on fire, maybe people are smoking inside when they aren't suppose to be. Maybe someone burns their food commonly and that needs investigated before they burn the whole damn place down one time. I can see lots of reasons for that.

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