FirstAlert supercharges the smoke alarm with voice assistants and AirPlay 2

The days of the simple smoke alarm are toast, thanks to smart home devices like the new FirstAlert Onelink Safe & Sound, which adds so much more than saving your family from a domestic inferno.

If you thought that the Nest Protect was forward-thinking, the Onelink Safe & Sound ups the ante. The smoke alarm doubles as a smart speaker, with an Apple HomeKit/Amazon Alexa version, as well as a Google Assistant one. The Apple HomeKit Onelink Safe & Sound also works as an AirPlay speaker.

Alternatives: The best smart smoke detectors

Back to basics, the Onelink Safe & Sound is a smoke detector and CO alarm. Now, smart alarms of this nature have been quite few and far between thanks to the stringent rules around development, but this is FirstAlert’s bread and butter, so expect this aspect to be well and truly sorted.

There are hard-wired (with battery back-up) and full battery operated versions available, and if you’re worried about spotty Wi-Fi affecting safety, you can use OneLink Connect, which allows you to place nodes around your home to extend a stable Wi-Fi connection.

Once that’s set up, you can take advantage of the smarter features. The Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant versions work much as you’d expect, with full voice assistant capability, and the ability to play music via the in-built speaker.

The HomeKit version enables you to control the alarm via your Apple Watch or iPhone using the Apple Home app. What’s more, you can play music to the speaker thanks to AirPlay 2, so it will appear within your list of locations within music apps on Mac and iPhone.

So what does this all boil down to? If you’re looking to place smoke alarms in key areas of your house, then the OneLink Connect is a great way to add voice assistant and speaker functionality into your home. It reduces the number of devices you need to have around, and adds to the coverage of voice assistants.

The HomeKit/Alexa version will launch in March 2018 – the Google Assistant model will follow in April. Both will be priced at $249.