On Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 7:44:05 PM UTC-5, Berma wrote:
replying to Bennett Price, Berma wrote:
I'm an electronics engineer, and have over the past year purchased several
Kidde Model i9040 ionization smoke detectors. I was annoyed to find almost
all of them, at one time or another, with fresh batteries, sound false
"Low-Battery" alarms in middle of cold nights. I verified that the batteries
are good, even when alarm is sounding, I can consistently measure more than 9
volts in every case - so it's not weak batteries, unless it maintains voltage
but not enough current? There is no moisture issue, in fact winter nights
here are cool. Inside temp that seems to be around 45-55F. What annoys me is
this is not unusual for many parts of my home on coldest nights. I've used
many brands of ionization detectors and never had this issue. Kidde needs to
solve this, as it could result in death or injury when we have to disable one
or more of them at night.


I've been trading emails with Kidde Customer Service over this past week. My
Combination Smoke CO alarm started chirping once every 60 seconds which is
supposed to be a low battery alarm but it's also supposed to be followed by the
"Low Battery" voice announcement. Mine didn't say a word. I tested the batteries
and they were fine. When I put them back in, the chirping stopped and hasn't
come back. That concerns me since the single chirp with no voice is not on the
table of indications for that unit.

Kidde said that it sounds like it's a battery problem and wanted to know what brand
I was using and what was the "sell by date".

Im waiting to hear what they'll say now that I told them that they are the 10 year
KIdde branded batteries that came with the unit when I bought if from their website
in 2015. If it really is a battery problem, then it's *their* problem. If it's not a battery
problem then it's still their problem because the unit must be defective.