"zzznot" wrote in message
...

Good luck. And good for you for watching out for your friend!

Wow! I just finished sending off an email to Kidde about
a new smoke alarm I just installed for Mom, with the same
concern!

This Loudenlow looks pretty good, but not cheap.

What is wrong with the major manufacturers,
the low frequency signal might cost another dollar or two
to implement, you would think it would be offered.

Still have to read most of the thread.

Thanks all.

Josh

To Josh and anyone else reading here, I wanted to say I found something that
fits my needs exactly after a few hours of searching the web and then my
local brick and mortar big box stores because I wanted to buy one today.
While I nearly got arrested at TarZhey for trying to listen to the alarms
before I bought them, a nearby competitor had what I needed:

http://www.firstalert.com/carbon_mon...tem.php?pid=24

Mark's suggestion to Google on "talking smoke detectors" lead to the above
URL, and although they had a lot of info, I couldn't tell what the sounder
sounded like. (You'd think they could post a small MP3 or WAV of the sound
or the voice on their website in this, the 21st century!)

I decided I wanted to try it because even if sounder was too high pitched,
the talking part might wake him. I also thought that it might be louder
since it used AA's and not 9V batteries. To my surprise, when I brought it
to his house and tested it out, the sounder was very much lower in tone than
his existing smokes and he could hear it with ease.

So, problem solved!!! I only bought the one, for a little over $40 with
tax, but it also includes a CO monitor so mentally, it fits what *I* think a
good smoke detector should cost: $20 each. I don't give it high marks for
intelligibility, though. When it goes off, it's the tone, a little silence,
and then a man mumbling in an urgent tone. "Warning . . . Warning . . . mo
.. . ected . . . in . . . ing . . . room." The alarm tells you which room
the alert is coming from and what the danger is (smoke or CO), which I think
is mostly a gimmick but may prove useful.

I am going to see if I can find a discount for the other two I need to
purchase to cover his house completely. I think he needs one in the garage,
the kitchen and the bedroom and maybe another one, but I feel incredibly
relieved that he's got at least one unit he can hear. It's also got another
issue I hope I can fix with a piece of black tape. It's got a feature that
allows silencing or testing via any household IR remote and the unit has
triggered twice accidentally as a result of a reflected IR beam. It's
mainly an issue of selecting the proper location, but that may be trickier
than it seems for some installations.

Thanks to everyone who chipped in! Nothing like actually accomplishing the
day's mission.

--
Bobby G.