Nest Protect smart smoke alarm systems are back in stock after being pulled down two months ago, but still lack the wave feature.
Nest Labs recalled its smart smoke and carbon monoxide detector two months ago after discovering a defect in the product's Wave function. The Google-owned company is still working on a fix for the waving function, but has decided to continue sales of the product anyways. The smoke detector is now available $20 lesser than its original price and the main reason for the price cut is the lack of the wave feature.
Nest Labs, which was acquired by Google earlier this year for $3.2 billion, halted sales of the Protect smoke alarms in April due to the malfunctioning Wave function, which allows users to temporarily silence the alerts with a simple wave gesture in non-emergency situations. To take control of the situation, Nest rolled out a software update to completely disable the feature without stopping other functions. Last month, the company issued a recall of 440,000 units of the defective smoke alarms in the US.
The lack of Nest Wave in Protect smoke alarms does not affect other functions such as monitoring and alerting users of the high levels of smoke and CO via voice alerts and Nest app alerts. But as the company bragged about its Wave feature, which was novel and a major selling point, it remains to be unseen how well it will continue to sell the smoke alarms with the feature disabled.
Nest Protect's notable capabilities to detect CO in the air can still be a convincing feature. Carbon Monoxide (CO) is odorless and colorless but can have severe impact on a person's life as it directly affects the respiratory system. It can still detect CO in the air and warn users about the threat and also show the percentage of CO in the air if a user has the alarm connected with an app on phone.
The company spokesperson, however, has confirmed that Nest is "still looking into a solution," which means users will eventually be getting the key feature back either by means of an OTA update or by replacements.
Nest Protect smoke alarms can be bought online from its official website or Google Play Store for $99 in the US, down from its $119 MSRP. The company offers both wired and battery models (5 years life) for the same price.
