By order of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Google Nest has informed customers that it is recalling all 440,000 Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detectors to fix a safety issue after a faulty triggering system part of the Wave feature caused problems. The new alarms, however, are soon to be back on the market, ostensibly with the feature being fixed.
The process began in April when it was uncovered that the Wave feature was not functioning as it was designed to do, so Google immediately stopped selling the product and delivered refunds as it investigated the matter. The Wave feature allowed owners to silence alerts or cancel a test by waving their arm near the unit.
The new update is in line with what the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said in announcing the recall, that it allows for disabling of the Wave feature and in new products it will be disabled immediately.
According to Nest's media center, the commission's publishing on its website details of the recall still means that "nothing has changed since our initial announcement last month and in fact, we'll be bringing Nest Protect back on the market in a few weeks."
As soon as the Wave feature is disarmed and not active, Nest users will have a device that was advertised, including the ability to have information sent to your smartphone. It will no longer come with the Wave feature automatically activated.
"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," says Nest.
It is unclear the overall number of products Nest has rolled out at this point, but it hopes that by being transparent and open about the faulty feature, it can continue to gain the trust of individuals who want to bring smart technology to protect against fire.
Nest CEO Tony Fadell said when the fault was discovered that the company does regular testing of its products in order to ensure there are no problems.
"During recent laboratory testing of the Nest Protect smoke alarm, we observed a unique combination of circumstances that caused us to question whether the Nest Wave (a feature that enables you to turn off your alarm with a wave of the hand) could be unintentionally activated," he said.
That led to Nest informing the public and doing a recall.
