How Fire Detection and Safety Technology is Evolving to Provide Peace of Mind to the Residential Community

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. You know, one of the conversations that I love having the most inside of our industry is around the world of security. Because what's unique about the world of security is that a lot of our technology literally saves lives every day. You know, whether it's things like industrial access control systems, but all the way down to things like residential technologies, whether that be intrusion detection or a c o two detection or fire detection. And what you see in the industry is that a lot of those technologies that start in the home find their way to some of those larger and more enterprise applications because of things like user preference and user experience. So I wanted to dig in a little bit deeper in that world today and bring on somebody who knows far more about that world than I do, and that's Isis Wu, president of global residential fire and safety over at Carrier. Isis, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Thanks for having me. Well, Isis, I gotta ask. Right? As somebody who is a fan of of technology in general, I love seeing like I mentioned off the top, I love seeing how technology really continues to permeate its way in the home, whether that's through detection, intrusion systems, c o two systems, things like that. But I wanna ask, at a high level, where would you say we are right now, maybe in the life cycle, but also in in sort of that demand process from from some of those those technologies that you see in the home. Yeah. So, you know, in the safety space in particular, fire safety where I, specialize, people don't really, think about it all the time. You know? It's not top of mind for any of us. We're not looking up at our ceiling in the home wondering if we have the right smoke detector, if it's working or not, if we're protected in case of a fire. We just don't think about it. And it's important to spend time understanding consumer habits so that we can design products that better meet the needs, that they have and better protect them at the same time. And, you know, here's a little factoid for you. Sixty percent of home fires are due to human error, and forty percent of people think they have more likely chance to win the lottery or get struck by lightning than experience a home fire. So it's it's but, actually, it's the most common disaster that people face in the US in their homes. So there's a disconnect, between how important of an issue it is and how people perceive it. And decades ago, you had something like twenty minutes to get out of a house in case of a fire because of the materials, used to build the house, the fabric, and the furniture. But now you only have two minutes to get out because fires are burning faster. There's different kinds of fires, smoldering wood to, you know, fast burning fires. And oftentimes, the wood, that the smoke knocks you out before the fire itself does. And so you've got all of this industry dynamic going on, and then you also have the the alarms themselves. They the old technology will cause nuisance alarms a lot of the times, which is when you're cooking and there's no real fire and it goes off. And it's annoying, and then we as homeowners, consumers disconnect our devices in frustration. And another thing that a lot of consumers relate to is when the alarm beeps in the middle of the night because Uh-oh. Right? Have you had this experience? Right? In the last month. Yes. Oh, no. But now, don't be too annoyed because it's beeping because it's battery died or it needs to be replaced. It's reminding you that that it's important to upgrade, make sure you have the safest products, and and make sure that you have that protection. But oftentimes, as it happens, you know, you you don't care. You probably just yank it off the ceiling or use a broom, what have you, just get it out. Right? Get it to stop sounding, and that actually leaves a lot of people, protected in their homes. So what are we doing about all this to address how fire safety has evolved over time, and and the pain points that consumers have, we've actually launched a new line of products offering enhanced sensing technology discrimination that reduces the false alarms that detects discrimination that reduces the false alarms, that detects all kinds of fires both the fast burning and the smoldering wood, and our products offer three times the precision and twenty five percent faster detection than the next best alternative. Then this is the type of technology that is evolving over time, and that that has to evolve over time in order to meet the needs of of modern consumers. Well, it it's interesting, and I love that you bring up kind of the distinction between, obviously, kind of the legacy, I would say, the nuisance style, like you mentioned, and the more modern sort of detection systems and things like that. And and, look, I I'll be the first to admit the smoke detectors in my house are fifteen years old. Right? And that's not good. I need to go change those tonight. But, you know, one of the challenges, you know, you you talk about the end user preference and experience and things like that. The challenge is that maybe the end user doesn't always know or understand what the best practices are or only interact, like you mentioned, with those systems when it's it's either a nuisance or, heaven forbid, a disaster. But what would you say from a user perspective, you know, are some of the advantages maybe of of even finding and and intentionally adapting to some of these newer technologies? Oh, many, many advantages. Right? So, with our new detection technology, especially when it's more precise and faster, you have more time to get out of your home when the alarm sounds and and you have to get out for a fire. And our our devices have have saved many lives. We get testimonials all the time. So make sure you're getting the right products, and then also make sure you are putting them in the right places in the house and you have enough of them. Another issue with safety is that less than thirty percent of the US household have enough of the devices in their homes in the right places by NFPA standards. So you should have a device, you know, a smoke detector on every floor, in every gathering area, hallways, living rooms, bedrooms. You should have a CO detector outside every bedroom. You should have a fire extinguisher on every floor, in the kitchen, in the garage. And and most of us don't have all of that. In fact, a lot of homes don't even have one single device that works. And so there is a a huge gap in, consumer awareness and education and and what you need to keep self safe. And so you you should know all of these things, and you should then have the right device and make sure it's working. And this is where our smart devices, which we've we've launched a whole series two years ago, get at even more of that value added consumer need. Well, I I wanna ask about those smart devices. Right? Because, you know, I've had the opportunity throughout kinda just my career to to get to talk to a lot of different places and see technologies, especially in the home, evolve, whether it's HVAC, whether it's locks and intrusion, whether it's, you know, automation and lighting, things like that. You know, the fire and safety side of things isn't immune to that either. Right? There's a lot of smart technologies, whether it's, you know, remote alerting or things like that continue to find their way in sort of these these smart interfaces. You know, what are some of the ways that you've seen a lot of these fire and safety systems evolve to to better support not only the user experience, obviously, but maybe that holistic smart ecosystem? Yeah. So, a lot has happened. You might know that Google Nest is out there as probably what consumers would think about as the smart smoke detector brand that they recognize. And they've been out there for a number of years. But the penetration of smart in our space has been very low for a number of different reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that price point. You know, if the smoke smart smoke detector costs a hundred and twenty dollars and you have to have five of them in your house, that's pretty prohibitively expensive to just keep the basic level of safeness in your home. Right? And so that counts out a lot of American consumers to buy those devices. So that that leads to then a very low penetration of smart devices in our category. The second limitation is what I just talked about when you have modern, burning fires and materials and all kinds of different, needs that the consumer and the technology and the homes need for fire detection. And we have the new UL eighth edition standard out there that is trying to address these new needs to keep you safer in the home, that technology bar is extremely high. And so at its core, beyond the smart piece of it, you have to have a really good detection device that can discriminate all of these particles, that can detect all of these different types of fires, and then alert you, in the least time possible to get out of the house. And and a lot of people out there, a lot of, other players out there in the market can't meet those standards. And so that that is a big barrier as well. And now, obviously, we we have figured it out, and, we do have a really, really strong, new product line that that meets all of those criteria. And then once you get beyond that, initial barrier, then you get the benefits of what that smart device can do for you. And and then you have to tackle the consumer experience with that smart device, how it in integrates into your other smart home ecosystem, whether you are, commissioning it and then it's smooth and it's not giving you a lot of issues. Everybody knows that if you try to install something and it takes you half an hour for a smart device, you're you're not you're gonna return it. Right? So, so all of these areas we have to address, and these are almost table stakes to be able to have smart takeoff in our category. But if you can address all of these, different needs, then you get a lot of advantages. So, for example, our smart lineup, and and certainly our our next updated lineup next year, we'll be able to do a number of things for you. If, if you're in the house and a nuisance alarm happens, you can shut off the alarm through the app instead of climbing up a ladder. If you, put the location of your smoke detector into your app as you're commissioning it, then if that alarm goes off, you know exactly where the issue is. If you have other other properties that you own or you have parents or kids that you want to make sure that they're safe, you can install the alarms in their properties and add it to your app, and you can see if it's working, if there are issues. And if you're woken up in the middle of the night because of an end of life beeping with a smart alarm that actually knows where you're located, what your time zone is. And when you're sleeping, it's actually going to wait until you're awake to do that to you. And then we have a whole new array and broader set of detectors. For example, the first industry ever IAQ integrated device with smoke and carbon monoxide, you have now these multifunctional, multi sensing devices that then add even more value to you as you look at your indoor air quality over time in your home, and we're giving you recommendations of how to improve it and so on and so forth. So the the, the smart scope and what it can do for us is is really, unlimited. Isis, I I love that you kinda brought up the the sort of the installation and support and and usage side of things because, you know, as a lot of these in home technologies evolve to become smart, the user community and and, I would say, the buyer community in a lot of cases, evolves and tends to trust folks like electricians and security technicians and HVAC technicians a little bit more from an installation and support standpoint. Have you found maybe that that people who are more willing to adapt some of these smarter solutions, especially from a fire and safety standpoint, typically, will trust that that to be done through a specialty integrator, or do you find typically that they wanna go buy it from a Home Depot, or or or is there a little bit of variability there? Actually, apart from new installations in the home, so if you're a contractor with a new housing start, you know, new build or a new housing sale and you have to meet certain codes, only in those situations where a specialty contractor is installing it in your home. Most of the volume in the market, eighty five percent of it, is replacement volume. And that most of it is being bought by the consumers themselves when the alarm goes beeping and you go to Home Depot looking for a a detector to replace the one that you have. And so, a lot of this is DIY. I I read so many consumer reviews that say, you know, because we're not technicians, we're not electricians, And and if we don't know how to wire a detector, which I personally struggle with these, you know, you you might struggle with it a little bit, and you might bring a technician into your home to help you do it. But a lot of folks nowadays go on YouTube, right, can can do it themselves, and that's certainly going to continue. You know, one of the questions I had too, we we when you were talking about it earlier, you're talking about things like UL certification. And, you know, I wanna ask too, especially as we introduce whether it's smart technologies or or just really new building standards and codes and things like that, How have kind of the certifications and compliance side of a lot of these these safety devices and detector devices evolve? Are they still largely the same, or have they updated, some of those standards and best practices as as we step through, kind of next generations of technology? Yeah. They they've definitely been updated. And this year is the biggest update in over ten years. So there are a few different levels of codes and standards and regulations. Building codes and standards obviously play a very critical role in fire safety, establishing requirements for the design, construction, and maintenance of buildings to reduce the risk of fires and protect people and assets, including the home. But at the end of the day, we as consumers choose what homes we buy and what we put in it. And, unfortunately, because of other benefits modern materials offer, like durability, aesthetic appeal, functionality, and their impact on how fires can form is on the bottom of our list of awareness and consideration. So we we pick a lot of things in our house that actually lead to more fire risk. And this is why UL, the fire safety product standard, particularly in North America, updated, their requirements for the first time in over ten years in a very significant way. For example, the eighth edition standard, which is what we are on right now, is has added a lot of different fire types and testing for those fires and updated sensing criteria, to account for modern home fires. It's added new testing for nuisance alarms, especially related to cooking. And there are additional requirements around surge immunity, end of life signals, firmware requirements, all to increase the robustness of the product. And because of these updated product standards, consumers will see significantly better performance, products that last longer and certainly, by our products that we've just launched. And in fact, our new product lineup leapfrogs the current standard, which is eighth edition, and already meet the next level of of requirements, which is ninth edition. And ninth edition includes a whole new slew of additional benefits and more stringent requirements like stability tests, more reliability, testing for RF interconnected products, and requirements for drift compensation, which ensures that the device performance doesn't change over time, and many other benefits and other product requirements, that that others out there in the market don't have. And in terms of regulations, which is separate from the product standards, the requirement for having smoke detectors in the home is actually a relatively recent phenomenon, believe it or not. And even more recent is the requirement for, in some states, for having ten year sealed battery alarms. Because oftentimes, people have alarms that run out of batteries, and instead of replacing them, they just forget about it and then leave their homes unprotected. So we work at Kiddo with a lot of stakeholders to drive, legislation regulation to that that are beneficial for the consumers to bring that education and awareness more broadly. So for example, a lot of states still don't have the ten year sealed alarm requirement. Kansas still doesn't require CO alarms, and CO is the silent killer. And we've seen a lot of news lately about those, CO related death. So we see lots of opportunity to work with like minded influencers and drive the adoption and enforcement of regulations, and I talked earlier about NFPA and the thirty percent of homes being under protected. And all of this working together should help us, get the right technology and and protect, consumers more in their homes. You know, the thing that that really strikes me too, especially when we talk about technology in the home, is, you know, I love that you obviously you bring up the kid a name. A company that's been well known for a long time in prevention, security, safety, things like that. And one of the challenges of whether it's introducing smart technology or just having, you know, natural attrition in in the product life cycle is that you see a lot of these folks come in who try and be disruptors, who, you know, may not be up to code in one thing, but they're cheaper. Right? They try and fight on price, and they try and you know, but they they lack maybe some of the preventative measures. They lack some of the, legislative measures like you mentioned. You know, I wanna ask even, obviously, as a homeowner, as somebody who who has these conversations on a regular basis, You know, what other benefits do people get partnering with folks like Kiddo or Carrier versus maybe some of those those new, disruptor types who are gonna sort of be a flash of the pen. What are some of those those benefits and differences between those companies? Yeah. So, for the consumer, safety is number one. Right? And we've seen even in the last few weeks, the CPSC has, warned consumers to not buy and to have customers on the channel side delist, Chinese made a particular Chinese branded smoke detector because they're they just don't work. And and that is the worst thing you can possibly do is to buy a cheap safety device and then not have it work at a very critical moment in your life. And that's happened to a number of Chinese branded detectors. And, you know, we, for example, as an established player and as a as a player who really, really care about this and lead the industry in terms of safety, we have voluntary recalls on our product just so we make sure you have the best product out there. We've recalled products that have no safety issue whatsoever, but maybe they give you a little bit more nuisance alarm than what we feel you should be getting because we don't want you to have that nuisance and then to pull things off of the wall because that's that's actually unsafe for you. So we're very proactive in making sure that you're getting a really, really good quality safe device. And because we're an established player, because we have the channel penetration and we work very closely with our big channel partners, we know how to address issues when it comes, whether it be product support, consumer complaints, returns. If there is a recall, we're working with all the customers and consumers and regulatory agencies to make sure that you're being made aware, and none of the other types of players can provide that. Well, it's really peace of mind. Right? That's what you're selling. And at the end of the day, obviously, look, we we want technology that works since preventative and and responds when needed. But at the end of the day, look, our technology here in this case is designed to to, you know, make the user, make the home buyer the homeowner feel safe and have that peace of mind. Right right knowing that they're it's something as simple as knowing that their their battery is not gonna be a nuisance to them whenever they're trying to sleep or wake their kid up. Obviously, extrapolated all the way to making sure that, hey. If there is an emergency, there's proactivity there. There's there's things that are happening, whether it's calling the police, whether it's a a mobile alert, things like that. And I think that's one of the challenges that that a lot of the disruptor types into all technological industries, not just specifically this one, have a challenge with is is, okay. How do I go beyond just sort of the technology and build that relationship, build that peace of mind, build advocacy, have customer support, establish relationships with the channel, things like that. And and I love to see that that's something that that Kida focuses on really because you guys do such a good job of not only providing peace of mind, but really giving that that end user, you know, the ability to sleep at night knowing that if something does go wrong, they're gonna get alerted about it. Yeah. I'll give you another specific example as we were talking about smart. You know, how you how how do you know your smart alarms, smoke alarms are working? You know? It's sitting up there on the ceiling. Yeah. You don't know if it's been commissioned properly or connected properly. And and in particular, when you travel and stay in places like Airbnb or other third party properties that aren't hotels, which are much more stringently regulated in terms of fire safety precautions, you might see in the Airbnb app that there are smoke alarms at the property. But when you get there, those alarms might be sitting on a dresser or pulled off the walls or disconnected. And I'll tell you in just about every experience I've had recently, because I'm a huge Airbnb fan, that has been the case. The alarms were sitting on the dresser. So you as an occupant are not protected. The property owner is not protected. And if anything happens, Airbnb's reputation gets damaged. Same thing for CEO, which has been in the news, in a big way, recently. So that's another benefit of that control, that that knowledge, that awareness with smart devices in particular. You can actually know if it's working or not. Well, that's that's incredible too. I I hadn't even thought of that right from a almost a facilities and building management position as well. You know, you you have that, you know, occupant, safety. You have that occupant peace of mind as well. And I wanna ask I wanna give you the last word before we wrap. You know, looking into the future a little bit, and I know we talked a little bit about smart technologies and things like that. But how do you see technologies, whether it's AI, smart connected devices, continuing to impact things like fire and safety devices moving into the next five, ten years? Yeah. A lot. There's a lot of innovations to be had, ahead of us. You know, one of the biggest development in the safety space, in my space, was, using firmware and algorithms, not just electronics, not just components and hardware to discriminate particles. And as you get even more advanced with algorithms and AI in particular, We want to be in the in the realm of prevention. You know, there are there are companies out there who can prevent fires from happening before they've they happen because they've actually looked at the electrical sparks within the home and see that there is a trend toward a certain dangerous direction, and then they'll actually say, alright. You need to go call an electrician and look at that particular space in your home right now. Right? Or, you know, we're looking at we have water leak detection. And, wouldn't it be great if we can prevent the water leak from happening by by assessing certain certain, certain trends or mold. Right? We don't want mold to grow. We have IAQ now in our detectors. Can we look at certain conditions that make mold growth likely and then alert the consumer and have them take care of it before it starts. And so all of these things, I would love for for us to explore much more in the future with technology and advancement and AI in particular on the prevention side, on making sure that we're seeing the patterns and prevent hazards from happening before they happen. Well, Isis, that's incredible to hear it, and I know that, you know, gathering those data points and things like that, you know, you you see a trend towards users and buyers, willing to, you know, adopt a lot of these technologies and leverage AI, especially when it comes to things like proactivity and safety. Because at the end of the day, when you're able to prevent something from happening, whether it be a disaster or potential loss of life, it it's it's far better than having to endure the stress otherwise. But I'll tell you what, Isis, we appreciate you coming on the show, and we look forward not only to to hearing more about some of the great things happening at Kida and Carrier, but also seeing you hopefully out at shows like GSX and ISU West and having conversations about the macro industry as a whole. But thank you so much for coming on today. We appreciate you. Thanks so much, Ben. I enjoyed it. Well, fantastic. And thank you all for tuning in subscribe. Check us out next time on the show.