Mains smoke / heat alarms questions

[JohnW2]

True, but there's little value in the bases which have nothing but a connector in them. And Aico have said (IIRC) that it's now policy to stick to the one universal base.

Indeed, and it's clearly a policy which is welcomed by customers/users and (as below) may well also e commercially advantageous. However, policies are not necessarily set in stone, and different people have different ideas about them.

Besides, there's a strong commercial argunent against changing the base ... If the user can just unplug the old alarm and plug in a new one then they are incentivised to stick to the same brand. Once they have the inconvenience and potentially cost (paying someone to do it) of changing the base then they can easily switch brands. So making it easy to stick with your brand makes sense.

Yes, commercially speaking, it's a 'balanced argument', so it comes down to whether the swings or roundabouts win - hence, at least to some extent, a 'commercial gamble' for them.

We know that consumers are not necessarily rational. Millions of them buy cheaper products despite the fact that reduced reliability and longevity probably mean that they will end up paying more in the long-term.

It's one of the relatively few major brands and they are regarded as very 'reputable', so many people probably buy them, or are advised to use them, purely on that basis - with many people probably not even being aware of the 'base issue'. Furthermore, if one wants to be cynical, some of those "paid to change bases" (or whole alarms) might be tempted to 'recommend' a brand that would increase the amount of future work/money for themselves and their their fellow 'alarm fitters'

However, that's all hypothetical and I certainly agree that the prospect of Aico bases remaining unchanged 'for ever' (at least, definitely for a long time) makes them particularly attractive.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ey143]

We actually cabled every major ceiling room in the house because our building inspector first said to us that we could avoid using FD30 doors as part of our renovation project if we did it this way but then sometime later could not recall saying that. I kind of also wanted it that way so I could use some of the more smart sensors for which act as temperature sensors in my room but having now seen that these can be £100 each and last only 8-10 years, I dont want to be spending £1500 again.

I also agree about the point about some of these large "here today gone tomorrow" companies and switch off of their servers or even Google ending the life of a product.

My Fireangel St-622Q was a simple replacement on the base of my old one which I installed 10 years ago....but not mains wired.