Gadget Review: X-Sense wireless interlinked smoke alarms

One of the problems with smoke alarms is that they aren't always easy to hear from a distance. If the alarm in your kitchen goes off, but you're upstairs listening to music - will you hear it?

The law in Scotland has recently changed to require interlinked alarms. That means if one goes off, all of them sound the alarm.

The good folk at X-Sense have sent me their SC07-W set to review. For about £100 you get three units which have already been set to a unique network. They have a sealed battery and have a 10 year life. They come with ceiling mountings, rawlplugs and screws.

And... There's not much more to say! I screwed them in, flicked the switch, and they automatically connected on their own private 866MHz network. I lit some smoke under one of them, and all three sounded a shrill alarm.

They have a little LCD screen to tell you how much Carbon Monoxide they're detecting. Which I guess is nice? The screen is only backlit when something is detected. The RGB LED only lights up if there's an issue. Finally, there's a test button so you can make sure they're working.

A few points to note against them. I don't think they have a heat alarm - which might not make them comply with Scottish legislation.

Secondly, and somewhat frivolously, they don't connect to WiFi - which means you can't use them with the X-Sense Home Security Hub. I've previously noted that, while it is nice to have a cheap WiFi smoke alarm, they're not essential.

So, if you need to cover a home with interconnected alarms, these are pretty good and reasonably priced. They don't have any cool IoT features - but I guess that also makes them less vulnerable to hackers?