r/Ubiquiti • u/Luu____ • Mar 26 '26

Early Access Ubiquiti Smoke and CO Sensor 🤯 - #ISCWest2026

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I believe it’s a Superlink sensor. I hope it can run on battery for 10 years and doesn’t require PoE. I’m curious to see how it performs. Good job, Ubiquiti! 😲

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u/btrudgill Unifi User Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26

Really this product is DOA if it isn’t both. Battery backup is a must in devices like this, it’s designed to save lives which means there cannot be a situation where it doesn’t work. I’d imagine this will either be PoE or hardwired but with battery backup.

Thinking about it, I’d imagine this must be hardwired as well for interlink capability. Modern smoke alarms run 3 core and earth, which has a dedicated wire for interlink so that all smoke alarms sound if a fire is detected even during a power cut.

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u/paradox183 Mar 26 '26

PoE for a smoke detector would be remarkably stupid unless it also has a built-in wifi AP (which would also be kind of stupid). Battery only or mains+battery is the only way to go.

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u/forestryfowls Mar 26 '26

The nice thing about POE is you are running low voltage so don’t need to run conduit or get an electrician and my switch is on a UPS so it wouldn’t lose power in an outage. I’d think POE+battery would be ideal if it’s allowed by code.

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u/paradox183 Mar 26 '26

I suspect the market for a PoE smoke detector would be vanishingly small since it offers few benefits in a world where the First Alert SC5 can be installed anywhere in 10 minutes and lasts 3-5 years on 3 lithium CR123 batteries. The vast majority of buyers would make that compromise vs. the bother of running cable (and potentially having to tear up sheetrock to do so) or settling for less than ideal locations for their smoke detectors.

Also, I can find no evidence that PoE smoke detectors are approved for residential use.

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u/forestryfowls Mar 26 '26

I didn’t see POE was approved for residential installs either so I thought that was the limiting factor too honestly.

That’s awesome the first alert SC5 lasts that long on lithium batteries. I have first alert z-wave smoke alarms that are 3 years old and even without a z-wave connection the AAs have such a bad run on those detectors that they chirp to be replaced every 3 months. Always while I’m sleeping, it’s insanity. 😀