Customer Reviews

Kidde PI2010 Smoke Alarm Dual Sensor with Battery Backup, White

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I didn't know about replacing smoke alarms every decade until very recently. The units in my home were two decades old, hardwired AC with no battery backup. They tested fine but after twenty years it is certainly time to replace them by any standard. There are three in my home, one on each floor.

After doing a bit of research and being a smart consumer, I decided the PI2010 was the best choice out there. I purchased them up at a local big box home center because the price was highly competitive with Amazon and I didn't have to wait for shipping (even free super saver shipping).

In the box was a mounting bracket, three-wire harness, instructions, screws, and the smoke alarm.

Installation was a breeze - shut off the power at the circuit breaker first, removed the old alarms and harnesses next. The instructions with the PI2010 made it clear to not pull out the battery shipping tab until the units all had AC power applied. The mounting bracket was able to use the existing screws so I didn't have to even remove them from the ceiling box. The harness wired up easily and after plugging it into the alarm it only took a small twist to secure it to the mounting mounting bracket. After turning the power back on, I pulled the battery tabs out of each alarm. I tested each one, and had a friend make sure the units on the other floors sounded also.

The alarms in this model are about twice as loud as my old smoke alarms, almost ear splitting loud so I believe there's no chance to sleep through it. A green LED tells you it has AC power and there is a red LED that flashes every so often to say it's working. I may find the 'hush' feature useful for my occasional kitchen disaster, but fanning a cookie sheet is my usual move when I burn something too crispy.

The fact that the battery compartment is on the backside does not detract from the alarm. just a simple quarter twist and the unit comes off the bracket. On that note, it does have an anti-tamper feature that if you choose to activate, removing it from the bracket requires a read through the instructions and a lot more effort.

All in all, it was a breeze to install, it looks and feels professional, it is the loudest alarm I've ever heard, and the hush feature is great.

I plan on extending the wiring and installing these in each of the bedrooms, above and beyond minimum code.

The battery replacement is not nearly as bad as others have described. Just twist the unit off from the mounting bracket, pull off the wired plug, and flip open the battery case. I was also happy to learn that if your house has the red wire, all the smoke alarms are interconnected. That is, if one smoke alarm detects smoke, all the alarms in the house will signal an alert. HOWEVER, all the smoke alarms must be the same! That is, when I initially installed my first PI2010, it kept beeping 3 times every few seconds. I later found it's because I hadn't disconnected my old smoke alarm in the second area. Once I installed both PI2010s in my house, everything worked fine.

Just bought a house and the smoke detector was over 20 years old. After looking at the various smoke detectors on the web, realized that I needed a dual alarm with both photoelectric and ionization sensors for best coverage. Most of the cheaper alarms are only ionization. This unit met my needs perfectly...

Dual sensor
Hard Wired (previous detector was hard wired)
Battery Backup
Hush button (for false alarms)

Got the alarm a few days before the estimated arrival date. Pulled the pieces out of the box (instructions, bracket, unit, and wiring harness), did a quick look through the instructions and went to work. It really only took me about fifteen minutes to install...most of that time taking the old units bracket down and putting up the new one. The wiring harness has three wires...black, white and red...but the red one has a plastic cover over the end in case you don't need to wire multiple alarms together.

After attaching the needed wires to the house electric with wirenuts and electrical tape, just attach the bracket to the wall, make the sure the included battery is isntalled in the unit, plug the wiring harness into the back of the unit and attach to bracket. Piece o' cake.

If your home already has a certain wiring harness, and you don't want to mess with electrical, I believe there are adaptors available for the back of this unit as well that can accept other shaped harnesses. Very convenient, if you need them. For me, it was pretty simple to cut the power and hook it up myself.

I purchased 7 of this item because the smoke alarms in my home needed to be replaced (> 10 years old). This item is a replacement of the highly rated (Consumer Reports) Kidde model PI2000.

I can't rate the performance of this smoke alarm yet, but I wanted to warn other prospective buyers about what I consider a poorly placed battery compartment. The battery compartment for this item is located on the underside of the unit. To replace the battery, you have to unscrew the unit from the base plate.

I was considering returning my order, but read in the owner's manual that the unit will operate using 9-volt lithium batteries for backup. I did a little research on 9-volt lithium batteries and they supposedly will last longer than 9-volt alkaline batteries. I purchased 9-volt lithium batteries today and hopefully they will last at least 5 years. If not, replacing the batteries in these smoke alarms will become a pain.

I have 7 detectors in my home, the units provided by the builder 7 years were junk and malfucntioned at 2 years, numerous false alarms at 3:00AM (not Kidde). I realized i had disconected all but one of the crappy builder supplied units. A few months ago i installed 7 new units from Kidde. I used 5 dual sensor units, 1 with dual smoke and Carbon Monoxide, and one single unit photo electric on the main level close to the kitchen, some say the photo electric is better if it's closer to a kitchen range/stove. After 6 months, not one false alarm, they look nice, they are interconnected. I emailed Kidde prior to purchase to verify that these 3 units can be used together and are compatible when interconnected. I highly recommend Kidde, the dual sensor unit is a little pricey but worth it.

I returned home to find my hard wired smoke detector alarming intermittently. It is already 18 years old so time for a new one. After some consideration, I chose this unit since it incorporates two sensors into one. Tbe packaging is very good and plastic looks nice and professional. The back-up battery bay is rather awkward since one needs to take the smoke detector off its base to replace, but this is a hard-wired unit, battery is mainly for back-up during power failure, not to operate the unit. Nice touch in that unit comes with an alkaline battery (not brand name), just generic). Instructions straight forward and hardware fits nicely. As a bonus, it has a "hush" button which allows one to override the alarm. Highly recommended.

I recently purchased 6 of these from Home Depoot two months ago. My main complaint is the battery. Not only is the battery location a real pain in the neck to replace (as others have already noted). But trying to determine which detector needs a new battery is driving me crazy. One of mine keeps chirping intermittantly. It will chirp two or three times and then not again for hours or days. There are no lights that indicate which detector is having trouble. In the middle of the night when this thing is chirping, you don't want to be searching around trying to figure out which one to remove. Do yourself a favor and go for a model that has an easily accessible battery compartment and gives you some other indication rather than a chirp when it needs a new battery.

I bought this item a few days ago and I have not experienced any false alarms or anything out of the ordinary. I put this one in my spare bedroom and have not had a false alarm yet. I initially tested this interconnected to 1993 vintage BRK smoke alarms and all alarms sounded, don't know if this will work with newer BRK alarms. I replaced those same vintage BRK alarms due to age with a different combination of interconnected Kidde alarms and they too sounded when this alarm was put in test mode. You have about a 3 second delay when pushing the test button on any of the Kidde alarms and this procedure is in the instructions. This particular alarm has a slow pulsing alarm which is loud. I have not had any midnight heart stopping alarms or chirps from this one, or any of my new Kidde smoke alarms. This model comes with the battery already installed and I pushed the test button on this unit before applying 120v house current. This should solve any chirping issues that many others have complained about. I solved chirping issues on this alarm and other Kidde models by first activating the test mode with the battery installed and prior to applying 120v house current. I would advise that you put the battery in some of the other Kidde models and push the test button to activate the battery before attaching it 120v house current.

There aren't many choices if you want a dual sensor alarm that is hardwired with a battery backup. I'm glad Kidde makes one. This model works well (at least I think so, hopefully I'll never have to put it to a real test). A couple years ago I bought several of the prior model, PI2000 I believe, which were recalled. It took Kidde forever (over a year) to fix the problem and begin selling a new and improved version. In the interim they sent me a different model to replace the defective units with and when the new models were finally available they sent them to me and suggested I donate the temporary units to a charity like Habitat For Humanity. While the whole recall was inconvenient, I understand that things happen and they handled it very well. If not for that, definitely 5 stars.

I purchased several of these recently to replace the original wired/battery detectors in my home. The house is at least ten years old, and it was time. They were easy to install and went in just fine.

These are designed to be wired together and I confirmed they work as designed. When one goes off, they all do. One word (actually a few) of caution though, you do need to keep track of which wire is the carrier between the detectors.

Bottom Line: If you're not comfortable with doing your own electrical repairs like replacing a switch or plug, then I wouldn't recommend you try this task yourself.