Kidde Ionization Smoke Alarm With 10 Year Battery By Beth Kayhart on Oct 02, 2007 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

I have recently had much experience with this smoke detector. I am a firefighter and I have distributed over 700 of these detectors to residents in our fire district through a grant our fire department received. The most pronounced feature is the battery. It comes with a 10-year lithium battery. That is amazing in my eyes. One of the biggest problems with smoke detectors is not that they don't work; it's that the batteries go dead, and for whatever reason, the homeowner doesn't replace them. This detector allows for less worry of a dead battery. While they still need to be tested regularly, this is one less thing to have to think about. This detector also has a hush feature, so when you have a nuisance alarm (like burnt toast) you don't have to take the battery out to disable the alarm (and then forget to put it back in). You simply press the hush button. With as many as I have distributed, I have only encountered 2 that were dead out of the box. That isn't bad for over 700 detectors. I feel confident that the detectors we have distributed will provide peace of mind for homeowners and possibly save someone's life. The only downside is that it is not also a carbon monoxide detector, as it is nice to have both in one unit.