There's really not much to review since this basically is a smoke alarm from a brand that is generally recognized. It does what it is suppose to and the having combination alarms of smoke/carbon monoxide is an excellent feature. So lets talk about the weaknesses that should persuade you not to purchase this.
The first main problem when I received this in the mail (I purchased this from an online description) is the 9v eyesore. I am strongly against electronics that need non AA batteries to serve as backup. They are an extra product you need to store (more expensive) and inconvenient as everyone should have AA batteries around. They are always available and lets face it, if it's good enough for their portable versions they should make it available in their hardwire editions.
If the 9v isn't a problem for you than you should be aware of the following warning from their manual:
THE ALARM CANNOT BE OPERATED FROM POWER DERIVED FROM A SQUARE WAVE, MODIFIED SQUARE WAVE OR MODIFIED SINE WAVE, INVERTER. THESE TYPES OF INVERTERS ARE SOMETIMES USED TO SUPPLY POWER TO THE STRUCTURE IN OFF GRID INSTALLATIONS, SUCH AS SOLAR OR WIND DERIVED POWER SOURCES. THESE POWER SOURCES PRODUCE HIGH PEAK VOLTAGES THAT WILL DAMAGE THE ALARM.
This is ridiculous. The reason why you generally would want to setup an interconnectable system is reliability. In which case you should probably have some sort of backup power system in place. This might not be the case for you but if you ever live in a building with an interconnectable system and it randomly gets set off way too frequently waking you in the dead of night than you may know what I'm talking about.
Good product though but unless parts of your house are extremely sound isolated, you may want to stick with the portable version of this KN-COSM-B (versus this model KN-COSM-IB. Notice the missing I)
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Good Product Features
Strengths: Interconnectable system, Combination Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm. Voice Alarm.
Weakness: 9v backup. Off Grid Power warning.
There's really not much to review since this basically is a smoke alarm from a brand that is generally recognized. It does what it is suppose to and the having combination alarms of smoke/carbon monoxide is an excellent feature. So lets talk about the weaknesses that should persuade you not to purchase this.
The first main problem when I received this in the mail (I purchased this from an online description) is the 9v eyesore. I am strongly against electronics that need non AA batteries to serve as backup. They are an extra product you need to store (more expensive) and inconvenient as everyone should have AA batteries around. They are always available and lets face it, if it's good enough for their portable versions they should make it available in their hardwire editions.
If the 9v isn't a problem for you than you should be aware of the following warning from their manual:
THE ALARM CANNOT BE OPERATED FROM POWER DERIVED FROM A SQUARE WAVE, MODIFIED SQUARE WAVE OR MODIFIED SINE WAVE, INVERTER. THESE TYPES OF INVERTERS ARE SOMETIMES USED TO SUPPLY POWER TO THE STRUCTURE IN OFF GRID INSTALLATIONS, SUCH AS SOLAR OR WIND DERIVED POWER SOURCES. THESE POWER SOURCES PRODUCE HIGH PEAK VOLTAGES THAT WILL DAMAGE THE ALARM.
This is ridiculous. The reason why you generally would want to setup an interconnectable system is reliability. In which case you should probably have some sort of backup power system in place. This might not be the case for you but if you ever live in a building with an interconnectable system and it randomly gets set off way too frequently waking you in the dead of night than you may know what I'm talking about.
Good product though but unless parts of your house are extremely sound isolated, you may want to stick with the portable version of this KN-COSM-B (versus this model KN-COSM-IB. Notice the missing I)
67% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?