Trying Out The Second-Generation Nest Protect

Last month was the much-viewed article about losing trust in the Nest Protect following an obnoxious false alarm and the device not silencing, which resulted in me taking a sledgehammer to the offending unit. Since then, I've decided to give the Nest Protect a second shot as they sent out replacements for all of my devices with the second-generation design.

After that article last month, I quickly heard from Nest. Among the possibilities was a sudden change in humidity or temperature, which could cause the device to produce a false alarm, but wouldn't be the case here since I closely regulate the temperature/humidity due to the 60+ systems running daily here. Likewise, no dust should have gotten into the unit due to having a wife that constantly keeps things clean for benefiting all of the running systems. Nest ended up offering to replace all of my Nest Protects -- not just the one I smashed with the sledgehammer.

Old vs. New Nest Protect... They look basically the same, except for slimmer profile.

So while I mentioned I lost trust in the Nest Protect after the initial problem, I decided to take them up on their offer as I wasn't looking to buy any other smoke detectors after having bought these protects at $99 a piece just earlier this year. The Nest customer service was helpful and quickly sent over all the replacements... They're also confident I shouldn't run into problems with the second generation units due to improved filtering and sensors for reducing false alarms. The second-gen unit also has an easy-to-remove battery cover.

The wiring connector is very different from the first-gen unit.

After receiving the units, I was a bit disappointed that they changed the wiring harness as well as the mounting brackets. Even though the footprint of the unit is basically the same, the wiring harness and mounting bracket is very different and not compatible with the first-generation Nest Protects.

The mounting bracket is also very different even though the size of the unit is close to the same.

When realizing that and it wouldn't be something easy and quick or a simple job for the wife to do, I sat them away for two weeks until finding more time for swapping them all out.

At least there's now easy-to-remove battery compartment on the new Nest!