Thank you Google (Nest)

Today I believe that our Google Nest smoke detectors saved our home.

Our family has a Memorial Day tradition of visiting the local veterans cemetery to pay our respects to those who have served our country, and especially those that have made the ultimate sacrifice and given their lives in defense of the freedoms we enjoy every day in our great country.

It’s nothing dramatic, we don’t make a big deal of it, but we visit and pay our respects. A few years ago some good friends of ours started joining us, and we’ve made a tradition of doing brunch together afterwards. We’re usually out for a few hours, and then come home enjoy a relaxing afternoon doing, whatever.

Today started mostly the same as years past. We got up and got ready, and then we all piled in the car and headed off to the cemetery. We got about five minutes down the road and I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I don’t typically use my phone while I’m driving, so I just ignored it figuring I’d check it when we arrived and I wasn’t driving. A minute later I felt it buzz again. Then again. After it vibrated in my pocket a half-dozen times I decided I should probably check and see what was blowing up my phone.

It was my Google Nest app telling me that smoke had been detected in my son’s bedroom. I immediately checked our Blink indoor camera that overlooks our living room from the loft above it, and sure enough, our living room was filled with smoke.

I probably broke a dozen laws on the drive home got us home as fast as I safely could, and ran into the house. I turned into the kitchen and the top of our stove was on fire. My wife fortunately remembered where our fire extinguisher was under the sink, and we were able to put the fire out fairly quickly with minimal damage beyond smoke inhalation.

Our stove is a bit of a unique one where the knobs and controls are along the front edge of it, rather than the back edge. We believe that one of us unfortunately and accidentally bumped into one of the burner controls this morning before we left, turning one of the burners on. My wife had made banana bread last night, so her recipe book was laying on top of the burner that was accidentally turned on, and it had caught on fire after several minutes, after we had already left the house.

A couple of years ago we made a fairly significant investment in new smoke detectors in our home. It wasn't cheap. If I recall correctly I believe we spent close to $800 on them when they went on sale. We replaced every one of the old smoke detectors in our home. You know the ones ... the ones that wake you at 3am beeping because the batteries are about to die. I hated those things with a passion. So much so that I was willing to invest that much money in these just to get rid of that annoyance. I've been grateful for the fact that they self-test on a regular basis, and I've yet to need to replace the batteries in any of them. But I've often questioned whether or not it was truly worth what I paid for them just for these conveniences.

Until today. Today, I am 1000% supremely confident that had it not been for these smoke detectors, that notified me immediately of the smoke in our home from what turned out to be a real fire in our kitchen ... had I not gotten those notifications ... and having planned to be away from home for several hours this morning ... we would have never known, until it was too late. I am certain that without these smoke detectors, and the immediate notification of the fire, that our house would have been completely destroyed by fire.

Today, I am extremely grateful for the investment we made in our Google Nest smoke detectors.