I bought this unit to replace a prior model that was no longer available. It's installed in tandem with other smoke alarms as was its predecessor. It's less than a year old.
Since new, every few random months the unit chirps a random number of times at a random hour of the day - sadly, all but once at dark o'clock, waking up our little tykes. I've replaced backup batteries that test like new on my voltmeter, with new ones that also test positive, to no avail. None of the other units in tandem exhibit a problem. All units, including this one, work as designed when running periodic tests. The unit is neither dirty nor dusty. And I know it works in smokey conditions as my wife occasionally proves by talking on the phone and cooking at the same time.
It's just the kind of thing that makes you want to do something dumb like disable it. BRK Brands 9120B Hardwired Smoke Alarm with Battery Backup, Single Individual from Contractor Pack
Most reviewers report random chirping. In my case, I replaced the battery and couldn't get it to stop chirping every minute, until I found this advice elsewhere on the web:
1. Unplug detector from power (or flip circuit breaker)
2. Remove battery
3. Hold down Test button for 20 seconds
4. Replace battery
5. Turn power/breaker back on
This stopped mine from chirping every minute. Give it a try on yours.
I am now up at 3:30 a.m. with my husband as we are disabling the 4th one of these that has gone off, chirping about once every minute. They typically all decide to go off in the middle of the night, waking us up. He climbs up on a ladder and tries to vacuum it out. It still chirps. He puts in a new battery, which according to instructions inside the alarm itself, is the reason for the chirping. It still chirps. At this point, you are screaming every expletive that comes to mind that early in the morning. You then take out the battery and unplug it because that is the only way to make it stop beeping. Yes, this means you have a smoke detector that no longer works. The other review that says this is a defective product is exactly right. Save yourself some money and a great deal of frustration and buy another brand. If representatives of the manufacturers read these reviews and do not fix the problem, they will be liable for punitive damages when homeowners who have disabled these smoke detectors die in a fire.
I replaced all 9 smoke alarms in my house with the BRK2190B in about 20 minutes. The only reason I did not give it 5 stars is that the old ones were BRK (about 8 years old) that were starting to give false alarms (naturally at 2 or 3 in the morning). I have had them for a couple of weeks with no issues. The old ones did not indicate which unit had failed and was hard to trouble shoot). I had removed four of the 9 in the last year. All 9 of the new ones worked, and I had no issues. Only time will tell if I made the correct choice, but at least the BRK2190B will show me which unit caused the alarm. I have talked with other people with other alarms, and they all seem to have false alarms, so I am hoping the new ones work better. I admit I have not maintained them according to the manufacturer instructions, but who cleans them every month and test them every week.
I was very happy to notice that some Kidde smoke detectors came with a wiring harness adapter that plugs into your current BRK wiring and retrofits them to the Kidde Adapter.
I actually didn't realize that was possible until I went to Home Depot to check it out. Kidde actually made the swap out a no brainer after reading all the bad reviews associated with BRK.
The detectors I went with were Kidde 120 Volt Front Load Battery Smoke Alarm. I also got their CO/Smoke combo alarm that happened to have Voice Announcements to indicate what the problem was beyond the tone. The CO/Smoke Detector didn't have the adapter but it only took 5 minutes to rewire the connection. Our current building code require a CO detector in the home. Kidde detectors are a little more expensive but they all have hush buttons and tell you which detector went off. Their battery replacement doors are also really nice and warranty is 10 years instead of 5. You'll note the BRK detector says replace by on it and that date is always 5 years from manufacture. So Kidde's maybe twice the cost (at ~$15), but they last twice as long.
I have 3 new detectors in total that are working perfectly so far. The reason for the swap out was that my old BRK detectors went faulty on me - They went off for 5 hours while I was at work. My poor house pets were clearly pissed off / shell shocked when I got home. I was not happy and the only way to silence them was to pull all 3 from the hard wire connection and remove their batteries to reset/silence them.
Thanks to all the other Amazon reviewers for saving me from installing BRK again. Your reviews led me to spend the time I needed to get a better product.
I took the advice of another reviewer and replaced all of my existing BRK 910B smoke alarms with Kidde-Hardwire Replacement-Model # i2060 (P/N 21007397) smoke alarms. I purchased these from Home Depot for $15.97 each. These alarms comes with adapters for BRK hardwired smoke alarm, that can be quickly connected to the existing BRK hardwired connector in your ceiling or wall. These alarms needs to be replace every 10 years instead of 5 years and they come with a front battery door with a hush button. We replaced all of ours last week and haven't heard a beep from any of them yet! A great replacement alarm that you can purchase from your local Home Depot or online. Thanks to the 3/16/09 reviewer for this advice.
I was about to buy a set of these, because they are supposed to be an upgrade to the discontinued 4120B. My 3 year old house was fitted with those by the builder. We've only ever had one night of full-on false alarms (which happened at 2 am, 3 am, 4am...) a couple of years ago. Now they've started chirping during the early hours. Our HOA meetings often have people moaning about the crappy alarm clock smoke detectors that were fitted to all of the houses in our subdivision.
Thanks, Amazon reviewers for saving my money. I'm an electrical engineer with several years' analogue and digital circuit board design experience. To say that these alarms can be set off by "power substation switching" is a poor excuse for a bad design. Consumer electronics should be designed to work properly in the environment they are intended to be used in. This is clearly not the case with these things. Being connected permanently to a 115V AC supply means they will be subject to supply noise, which shouldn't cause them to malfunction.
(Star rating given for 4120B model)
Update... I changed all the batteries in the chirping units and it cured that problem. I tested the batteries that I took out, and they all show up as being full on a cheap tester. However, the batteries are pretty well spent - put one in something that actually draws some current for just a few minutes (e.g. a guitar effects pedal) and it will give up the ghost. They seem to only chirp at night and in the winter when it gets cold in the roof void above the alarm. I suspect the cold air makes the battery voltage drop just enough to make the alarm think the battery is dead - which it basically is. Not sure what these AC-powered alarms do to kill an alkaline battery in less than 3 years when alkaline batteries have a shelf life of 5 years. They must take a tiny amount of current from the battery, even while on AC power. - Annoying - First Alert - Brk Brands - Smoke Detectors'
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