GSM Fire Alarm: When a Call Really Frightens / Dadget Blog

Since I’m a technologist by nature, I have a lot of electronics at home. A washing machine, a kettle, a microwave, a refrigerator, a dark charge for various terribly useful electrical gizmos - all this makes me happy, endlessly eases my life and eats kilowatts of electricity. And I live in a private house, which I really like to talk to everyone and everyone. All this together makes me almost paranoid when it comes to fire safety. So when Dadget offered me to test their fire alarm with a GSM module, I first agreed and only then thought that the detector would not really bother me. Under the cut - a detailed instruction on the topic "how to make this toy useful", stories about how to make the alarm ring if it’s boring and lonely, quite a bit offal of this miracle device and a whole bunch of pictures

What does it look like?

Since I’ve got the exact same set that I’m selling in stores for free, we’ll start looking at our alarm system from the most exciting - boxes and bags:



The alarm itself comes in a box made of cardboard, which makes a very pleasant impression and immediately prevents the signaling, like a toy.



On the reverse side, we have some uninteresting technical specifications that promise that our fire alarm can wake us up at night (85 dB is approximately like noise from a Soviet motorcycle), it will work for three years in standby mode and will be able to notify us not only about the fire, but also about its own malfunction.

If you didn’t have enough photos from TX, here they are, but in a more textual form:



The manufacturer is lying to us or not - we'll figure it out along the way, but for now, let's open the box, because the hands are already itching.



Yeah, unpacked, how come. Okay, let’s open it again.



Here, it’s much better. The delivery kit does not contain anything superfluous or unnecessary, but at the same time we immediately get everything that is needed for the station to work properly: from the detector itself and a brand new battery to a bunch of instructions and the same brand new SIM card for remote informing.



Special thanks to the developers for such a squeeze from the instructions for use, which anyone else would open allowing you to quickly figure out what to do next. We will deal with the papers (at the end of the review I will post their electronic versions, take a look) later, and now let's look at the detector itself



The coin is not included in the kit and lies here only for the sake of scale, so throw it away, put it back in your pocket and continue to consider the alarm.

The detector itself is packed in a case made of glossy white plastic, which, by the way, is very durable, but easily soiled - before hanging such an alarm on the wall, it would not be a sin to wipe it. In order to make it clear that the detector is still working, a small LED is also placed on the front panel (in fact, it is not on the panel, but ... however, we still have time to disassemble this miracle), which blinks red once in standby mode 10 Seconds. On the one hand, it’s cool, and such a thing is in any alarm system, on the other hand, it’s annoying that you can’t turn it off, except you can not remove the diode itself. And so I wanted to hang an alarm in the bedroom ...



On the reverse side, everything is expected. The case itself consists of two parts: a base, which is mounted on 4 self-tapping screws to any relatively flat surface and, in fact, a detector that is screwed into it. To get the detector out of the base ... correctly, you need to unscrew it!



At the same time, the cover was removed. To do this, you need to pull it back and lift it - it will come out like a pretty one.

Under the cover we have a slot for installing a SIM card, a battery (which is CR123A) and a pair of contacts for connecting a whole bunch of alarms in one large line.

Turn on

Since the alarm itself does not know how to turn off, out of the box it is “turned off” with a piece of plastic. As soon as we remove it, the alarm comes to life.

After our alarm received its 3 volts of voltage, it immediately tries to access the GSM module and register the SIM card on the network. If it works out, it will go into programming mode for 40 seconds to record new numbers, if there is no SIM in the detector (this is how it is now) - it will immediately go into standby mode and will work like an ordinary fire alarm: yell with foolishness, in which case.

Since everyone has long been accustomed to conventional detectors, and there is still a SIM card in the kit, let's try to make our alarm ring and send an SMS.



To do this, we stick the SIM card into any phone lying around idle and activate it by registering on the network, then activate the starting amount, turn off all sorts of Beeline subscriptions and make sure that we have copied something to the SIM card memory. If all is well, we stick it into the alarm and insert the battery.



Immediately after switching on, the LED located to the left of the SIM card will blink (do not confuse it with the one on the front panel), indicating that the GSM module is trying to register in the operator’s network. If everything is fine and the registration was successful, the station will beep three times (by the way, quite disgusting), inviting us to register numbers (the developers call this the programming mode).

To record a number in the alarm memory, you need to call it and wait for a one-time squeak (no less nasty) to the detector. For everything about everything, we have exactly 40 seconds, after which the station will stop responding to incoming messages and will go into standby mode. After registering each number, the alarm remains in the programming mode for another 40 seconds, and in total 6 numbers can be recorded in the memory. At the same time, it is very important which number will be recorded first - SMS will be sent to it, notifying of something other than a fire: a manual test of the detector, low battery and dustiness of the sensor. In addition, each time the station is turned on, it will send a duty message to this number with an account balance and a list of registered numbers.

And what really works?

And let's check! Since setting the house on fire for the sake of the sensor test is an overkill, we’ll send the family to look for something smoking, and we will look for ourselves ... a goat!



Yeah, an ordinary fridge magnet. We need it to do what the developers call the “manual detector test." To do this, bring the goat to the arrow on the front panel.

Sensing a magnetic field, the sensor will squeak once, conduct a self-test, send a text message to the first number and scream just like when it burns.



Surprisingly, all messages from the sensor come in Russian, not in transliteration.

To turn off this screaming thing (and the sound is actually loud), you need to bring the goat magnet to the detector again.

In the meantime, a piece of remarkably smoking foam rubber was found in the barn:



A few seconds - and one more text message along with a call:



In this case, the detector stops saving our money and sends it to all the numbers recorded in it. And yet, he begins to call all numbers in turn, starting from the first, until someone picks up the phone. Well, the classic siren has not gone away, it will scream continuously for as long as 4 and a half minutes, and then it will emit a single beep every minute until one of the unburned inhabitants of the house comes and pulls out the battery or the fire stops

By the way, the alarm system can not only record, but also erase numbers from its memory. True, unfortunately, only all at once (on how to erase not everything, a little further). To do this, you just need to click on the button located to the right of the SIM card and hold it for some time, after which the alarm will begin to squeak and erase all contacts from your memory.

And what is inside her?

В том, что датчик работает и работает, надо сказать, неплохо, мы убедились. А давайте посмотрим, как он работает. Вскрываем?

Корпус самой сигнализации держится на четырёх защёлках, так что проблем с разборкой никаких



Под передней маской скрывается дымодатчик. Он у нас здесь оптический и измеряет прозрачность воздуха, поэтому сигнализация сработает только в том случае, если ваш домашний пожар будет немного дымиться.

Ещё одна защёлка и вынимаем потроха целиком



Динамик пристёгивается обычным двухпиновым коннектором, а GSM-модуль, похоже снимается



Ого, старые знакомые! Это ж целый SIM900! Отсюда и кириллица в смс-сообщениях. Приятно, что не сэкономили на GSM-модуле, хотя большая часть его функционала тут просто не используется.

Nothing more interesting here (well, except for the microcircuit that pretends to be a magnetometer. It seems to me that this is a simple Hall sensor), so let's take another look at the decent quality of the board and collect everything back.

It is assembled even easier than it was disassembled - the board is in place, the case is latched, the main thing is not to turn it on the other side, you will not see the signal LED, which is here, by the way, SMD and is wired to the board. And on the panel - just a transparent cap.



Still Alive!
By the way, if you insert the SIM card from the detector back into the phone and look into the contacts ...



Great! The first six numbers are exactly what the sensor works with. From here they can be easily edited or swapped (duty sms come only to the first number). In my opinion, it’s convenient.

And what does all this mean?

It only means that IP212-63A is an excellent fire alarm, which will find a way to notify you of smoke in a house, apartment or cottage, even if you yourself are far from this place. The pleasant features of the detector include its unpretentiousness, the terribly high volume of the built-in speaker, the long battery life and the ability to notify not only about a fire, but also about its malfunctions. Unpleasant is the lack of the ability to remove a single number from the list without removing the SIM card from the station and the need to pull out the battery to restart the device.

You can buy such a thing here , and to get a 10% discount, you need to use this promo code: GEEKT-SMS1.

And download instructions, a quick start guide and a certificate of conformity - here

Sincerely yours, passionate about correspondence with fire alarms, GrakovNe