Customer Reviews

First Alert SA521CN ONELINK Hardwire Wireless Smoke Alarm with Battery Backup

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have 7 of the First Alert SA520 Onelink units that were installed in my home 2.5 yrs ago. They were easy to set up although getting power to each unit in an older, 3-story home was the biggest challenge. They link to each other well. You may wish to install them in a particular sequence if using many of them on different floors. That way when the first one goes off, you might have a fighting chance of knowing which one it is since that one sounds off first. The reason I say this is because ours have begun going off in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. It has happened 4 times in about 4 months, and we never know when it will happen. They start sounding the alarm but shut off after about 20 secs, by themselves. We thought we had one defective unit but after removing it several days ago, they went off again tonight (6pm). All the other times have been when we were dead asleep, and boy is that a shock! These units are LOUD!

Gave it four stars for loudness and ease of setup. Minus one star for this bad habit I've described. Anyone know what might be causing this? Can they be tripped by RF interference? Says on the back that they "have to accept interference even if detrimental." (Who thought that one up?)

FOLLOW UP LATER.....

I discovered that the unit that was giving me trouble was near a ceiling fan on a dimmer switch that must have been sending dirty power into the circuit while it was running (as motors can do). when the fan is not running, i haven't had the problem with the false alarm. my suggestion is to narrow the search to find the one sending the alarm and take it off of the line power and run it only on the batteries to see if a dimmer or motor is causing the problem.

Our home was built in the late-70's so we had a hardwired smoke alarm on each floor but they were not interconnected, not to mention they didn't have a battery backup. If we were sleeping, could we expect to hear the alarm on another floor, on the opposite side of the house? That's a bet I'm not willing to take, so we spent the extra money on two of these. We also plan on buying a couple of the battery only ONELINK alarms to expand our safety and coverage without hiring an electrician to install.

To program, you insert batteries and close the battery door on one unit; then you insert batteries on the second unit, press a button on the second unit, then press a button on the first unit. Inserting batteries and programming took under two minutes for two alarms. My (getting better but still not what I'd call "handy") husband had the alarms installed in under five minutes each. So, I'd consider them pretty easy to install.

During testing, they communicated well together and they seem loud. Of course, the real test for any fire alarm is during a real fire but I'm not really into burning my house down for the sake of a review. Therefore, I'm giving it five stars and calling it done!

Bought 6 of these to replace my 13-year old BRKs. Easy to install. The wireless "mesh" interconnect feature was very easy to set up and seems extremely well designed. [The sensors in your "mesh" all recognize and talk to each other so that any sensor can trigger any or all the others, but they all ignore any sensors not programmed into their little network, i.e. they supposedly ignore the neighbors sensors. Also, if one sensor is remote, it only needs to be able to reach one other sensor in the net. It does not need to be able to reach all others...they will relay the alert.] They can also easily link into any existing hard-wired interconnect system in addition to the wireless.

Also I like the combination of battery backup and hard-wired power.

I also like the one button operation. Press the button to test, and press it again to silence any alert. So far so good. I think they are definitely worth the extra $ for trouble-free reliable detectors.

I also like the fact that they are optical (non-radioactive). But the instructions recommend to have both types (optical and radioactive ionizing), so I think I'll be buying 2 more of their ionizing type, one for each floor. Ionizing is supposedly better (than optical) for kitchen and wood stove areas.

I'll update this review if my opinion changes, but so far so good.

Read programming directions carefully. Product works as promised, one goes off they all go off. Find that lithium batteries only last 2 years in them not 9 or 10.

I bought 5 of these alarms (NYS requires one for each bedroom plus one on each level of house). Three worked fine out of the box. Two had to be returned, they sounded the 3 chirp defective unit code and wouldn't stop. This code is different than the weak battery warning. An google search found other reviews with the same problem; units don't pass the self diagnostic (3 chirp code) after a short period of use.

On the plus side they have a 10 year warrenty and First Alert doesn't seem to hassle about returns.

I installed eight of these and it was a simple process. All eight are in sync and work well. They are much better than the low cost units they replaced.

Looks like a quality product that installed easily as long as you can do basic wiring. I like the slide out battery door. Not to hard to get them to talk to each other and they all went off when I pressed the test button (after a few second delay).

I ordered several and have set up two of them so far which is easy to do. They work in theory. Don't know how they will do in a fire and I hope never to find out.

I replaced my 15 year old alarms with several models, including this one, from BRK/First alert. Everything worked great, including the wireless ones talking to each other; except for the wired/wireless unit. I though the unit was defective and BRK sent me a replacement immediately. I still had problems. BRK is sending me another replacement; but suggested that it was a wring issue with an old dimmer switch on the same circuit. I still need to replace the dimmer; but just wanted to highlight the great customer service.

Great high class product which fit the previous installed smoke detector base in the wall. New technology and wireless connection makes it state of the art.