Last month, sales of the Nest Protect smoke alarm were suddenly halted after the Google-owned company discovered a malfunction with one of the product’s key features. By design, a simple wave of the hand under the device was able to manually turn off an accidental alarm.
Nest discovered that the feature could be triggered by accident, which could result in some seriously dangerous scenarios. Now Nest is recalling all 444,000 of its smart smoke alarms with plans to have the device back on the market in a few weeks.
“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,” said Nest CEO Tony Fadell in a letter to customers last month. “This could delay an alarm going off if there was a real fire.”
Nest has issued a software update that turns off Wave until the bugs are fixed. Customers have also been able to request a full refund from Nest directly.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed today that the recall applies to every Protect that has been sold. “Nest Labs has received no reports of incidents, injuries or property damage,” according to the recall summary.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Nest said it has plans to bring the Protect “back on the market in a few weeks.”
Source: CPSC
