System Sensor, for instance, places a premium on research and development, resulting in products that are reliable, sophisticated and designed for real-world applications. There is some very high-quality fire equipment on the market today for both commercial and residential applications.
While the outcome of these developments are still to be determined, perhaps you should be sharing with your customers that not only do smoke detectors need to be fitted on each floor, but they should also be installed in children's bedrooms. Routman and Stults received their patent first but agreed to partner with the other two men in a single company, Smart Safety Systems Inc. "I almost went back to sleep, but I decided to get up and write it down."įray and business partner Dale McCarthy teamed up with Brent Routman and Larry Stults, who also had patented a talking smoke alarm. "I dreamed there was a fire in the house and the smoke alarm told the kids to get out," recalls Fray, a 42-year-old father of three. The idea for a smoke detector that lets parents record a message to tell young children what to do when there is a fire came in a dream, says Eddie Fray, one of four inventors of the KidSmart Vocal Smoke Detector. Four inventors are addressing this issue with a talking smoke alarm. Fire officials often report of frightened children crawling into closets to hide from smoke and the noise of the alarm. However, researchers are not sure what type of change would ensure better responses from kids, but might consider altering the tone, volume or style of alarm sound.Īnother concern is that when they do hear the alarm, the high-pitched sound makes children confused and unsure of what to do. Underwriters Laboratory has assigned a working group to further investigate the issue and assess whether changes need to be made to the alarms themselves. Shelly Weiss, a pediatric sleep expert at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. Children spend more time in the deep, dreamless phase of sleep, so even a blaring smoke alarm won't always wake them, comments Dr. Sleep experts suggest the poor response could be due in part to the way kids sleep. Having these appliances in the bedroom increases the risk of fire. What's worse is that very often children have televisions, computers and other electronics in their rooms.
It seems clear that some children-especially young children-may at times sleep so deeply that it may not be possible for the alarm alone to arouse them to the point where they can reliably evacuate a house on their own, comments Underwriters Laboratories spokesperson John Dregenberg. According to various reports, children under the age of 13 sleep so soundly during the first two hours of slumber that the sound of an average 80 decibel alarm will not alert them during the first stages of fire. The most recent development in fire detector detection deals with children and the findings of several studies which suggest they can sleep through the sound of an activated smoke alarm.