Thank you First Alert Onelink for sponsoring this post. Onelink Safe & Sound - Meet Your Family’s New Best Friend. #ONELINKSTORY
Last summer, we started adding some smart home features to our house, including keyless locks, light bulbs we can control with our phones, and even a smart garage door opener. I love the convenience each of these adds to our lives, but more than that, I love the ways in which they make our home a safer place for our family.
Recently we added one more smart home addition that has quickly jumped straight to the top of my favorites list. We installed the First Alert Onelink Safe & Sound smart smoke detector and carbon monoxide alarm in the boys' room to help keep them safe, which mom and dad love! But it's more than just that... it's also an Alexa enabled premium speaker and nightlight, which the boys are just crazy about!
SAFETY FIRST
When we bought our house before having kids, many of our parent friends warned us that having the master bedroom on a different floor than the kids rooms would someday be a problem. But thanks to a home security system that gives me peace of mind, and video monitors that allow us to hear the kids if they need us, having the master bedroom a floor above the kids has really never been an issue for our family.
However, there is one aspect of the distance between our bedrooms that does give me a bit of anxiety. I worry that if there is an emergency at night, the kids won't know what to do. We have a family safety plan, and we've told the kids that if they hear the security alarm at night, they should come directly upstairs to our bedroom, but if they hear the fire alarm, they should leave the house and go straight to our designated meeting place across the street. We've made sure the know the different sounds of each alarm, and we've had a few drills, but I still worry that if there were a fire at night, they would try to come upstairs to look for us rather than just getting out of the house to safety.
That's why I was so excited when I learned that the new Onelink Safe & Sound not only provides both smoke and carbon monoxide detection, and push notifications directly to our phones via the Onelink Home app, but it also provides the kids with verbal direction to leave the house in the event of an emergency.
SIMPLE INSTALLATION
The boys were both eager to help dad install the new alarm. Cooper put on his yellow hard hat, and studied the "constructions" as he calls them. We gathered the few tools the instructions said we might need: a Philips head screwdriver, needle nose pliers, and wire strippers.
Scott started by removing our old smoke alarm and it's mounting bracket.
The Onelink Safe & Sound comes with adapter plugs to save you the hassle of rewiring and make installation easy. It turned out that our old hardwired smoke alarm already used the same adapter plug, so we didn't have to do anything other than install the new mounting plate, and plug the new alarm into the existing adapter.
The kids were on the ready as daddy's helpers, but the whole installation process only took about five minutes and ended up only requiring a nothing more than a screwdriver.
HAPPY PARENTS! HAPPY KIDS!
One of my earliest memories is of my dad testing the smoke alarms in our house when I was four or five, and it terrified me. Now my boys also have a fear of our alarms. When I first told them we were going to install a new smoke and carbon monoxide alarm in their room, they were pretty skeptical and nervous. But once I explained to them that their new alarm also has a speaker and Alexa right on the ceiling of their bedroom, they were totally sold (hence their eagerness to help with the installation)! As my husband always says... it's all about the messaging!
As a mom, I feel so much better knowing that the Onelink Safe & Sound will keep my boys safer and help them know what to do in an emergency by not only sounding an alarm, but also having a voice that directs them to leave the house in the event that smoke or carbon monoxide is detected. Our new smart alarm will also send a notification directly to my phone and Scott's, allowing us to stay informed if an emergency were to happen while we were away from home.
Of course, the boys are most excited that they can ask Alexa to pump up the jams any time they want to dance (and let's be honest - they ALWAYS want to dance!).
We can even turn out the bedroom lights and use the Onelink Home app to choose different colors on the built in nightlight to really bring the party to life!
Then when it's time for bed, we use the Alexa-enable speaker to ask for the weather forecast to choose clothes for the next day, and set an alarm to wake the boys in the morning. We use the app to dim the nighlight for sleeping, and turn off the microphone so that the boys aren't tempted to play with Alexa when they should be sleeping.
As an unexpected side benefit, I'm enjoying doing the boys' laundry just a little bit more these days since Alexa to read me my audio book while I hang up all the clean clothes in the boys' closet.
I had been wanting to add more Alexa-enabled speakers throughout our house, but now what I really want is a Onelink Safe & Sound for every room. Here's a quick rundown of everything this smart alarm can do:
What more could you want than a smart device that provides entertainment, adds convenience, and keeps your family safe?
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
