Nest Protect - Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detector

Having installed a couple Nest thermostats in my home and really liking them it made sense for me to take a look at their Protect smoke and carbon monoxide product.  The Nest Thermostat is expensive but the utility companies provide rebates and you will save money on your electricity and/or gas bill so for me the cost is justified.

The Protect provides no savings so the feature set would really need to blow me away in order to make the investment.  For me the feature set is just not there yet to justify the cost.  I have a large house, almost 5000 square feet of living space so obviously I have a lot of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.  Although I did not realize how many I actually had until I walked around and counted them for this project.  I could not believe that I have 19 smoke or carbon monoxide detectors in my home.  Some of them are standalone carbon monoxide detectors which I could get rid of if I got the Nest Protects.  But that just brings the number down to 16.  So my cost to replace all smoke detectors would be almost $2000.  Not happening.

A few of my smoke detectors are hard wired so I may at some point replace some of those but will probably wait for the next generation to see if Nest will add to the feature set.  For me, at this point the cons far outweigh the pros as I see them.

Pros:

• Remote Monitoring
• Cool Factor
• Night Light

Cons:

• Cost - I can get a dumb smoke and CO detector for $30
• They expire after 7 years - at the price it would be nice to get more than 7 years out of them
• Limited Feature Set - The Ecobee thermostat has remote temperature sensors that can be added on so the temperature of your house is not just measured at the thermostat.  Would be great if Nest would put a similar sensor in the protect to extend the range of the thermostat.  There are probably all kinds of other sensors they could add to justify the cost such as air quality.
• Product was initially buggy - A friend of mine has a couple Protects and remember him telling me that his would randomly tell him that there was smoke in the hallway at 3am.  There was no smoke in the hallway.  I think he has the first generation Protects and I don't think this is still occurring but it does give me pause. 

So for now it is a wait and see what happens with the next generation Nest Protect.  Maybe the price will come down.  Or maybe they will add a must have feature.  I really want to talk myself into getting a couple of these Protects but I just can't justify it, yet.