If your smoke detector can’t detect smoke, then what’s the point? That’s the question some customers will be asking now that Honeywell is recalling its SWIFT wireless gateway.
The problem is that smoke detectors connected to the gateway “fail to activate properly when significant environmental contaminants are present, posing a risk that consumers will not be alerted to a fire,” according to a recall alert on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) website. And while Honeywell notes that there hasn’t been an incident resulting in any injuries or deaths, it certainly doesn’t want to wait until that happens to issue a fix.
It doesn’t seem as though all that many individuals will be affected by this recall. Only 900 units of the wireless gateway sold between October 2014 and December 2016 have proven problematic, but the recall speaks to a larger issue with connected devices that are meant to make our lives easier. While a multitude of smart home solutions have made their way to the mass market over the course of the last several years, recalls like this one remind us that no matter how “smart” these products are purported to be, they’re certainly not infallible. And when a product connected to device as important as a smoke detector or fire alarm fails, the consequences can be disastrous.
In any case, it looks as though Honeywell is getting well in front of this issue. As per the CPSC post, Honeywell is asking customers with a wireless gateway to send their devices in for a repair. So if you have one of these products (they’re round, white, and measure eight inches in diameter), you’ll need to contact Honeywell at your earliest convenience.
