Nest Labs will recall 440,000 of its Nest Protect Smoke + CO alarms, as stated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, approving the company's plans to fix a glitch in the smoke alarm that will delay its alarm from going off.
However, a spokesperson from Nest told TechCrunch that the product will be back on sale in the market in just a few weeks, after the company plugs up all the holes in the Nest Wave feature of the device.
Nest halted all sales of the Nest Protect Smoke + CO alarms last April, when laboratory testing conducted by the company revealed that certain circumstances can unintentionally activate Nest Wave, which is a feature of the device that allows users to use a wave of the hand to switch off the alarm. While this helps users when cooking in the kitchen, for example, this would delay the fire alarm from going off in case there is a real fire in the user's home.
Users who have their Nest Protect alarms connected to the Internet through Wi-Fi with a Nest Account, automatically had their Wave features temporarily disabled, while those that were not capable of connecting their Protect alarms to the Internet were given a full refund for the product.
Even with the recall, users may still choose to continue using the device as the Nest Wave feature is still automatically disabled remotely. The commission only ordered the official recall just in case there are some users that have not gotten news regarding the defect and are still using the Nest Protect alarms with the Nest Wave feature still on.
"This is a unique recall because it involves emergent technologies," said U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Carl Purvis. "Typically, we try to get the message out to as many people as possible."
"Nothing has changed since our initial announcement last month. Current customers can continue to use their Nest Protects once the Nest Wave feature has been disabled via software update. Even with the Wave feature disabled, the Nest Protect Alarm will continue to perform its essential safety functions, monitoring for increased levels of smoke and CO, and alerting users via voice alerts and Nest app alerts (if set up) as soon as there is a potential issue," Nest said in a statement.
Google purchased Nest Labs early this year for US$3.2 billion. Nest Labs was founded in 2010 by Tony Fadell, the godfather of Apple iPods, and Matt Rogers.
