January 8, 2009

A better smoke detector for children

       Will your child awake to the sound of a smoke detector in the middle of the night?  The White River Township Fire Department would like to offer parents the most up-to-date technology available to protect your children from fire, and assure they will awake and escape in the event of a fire during sleeping hours.  Recent studies have shown that children have not awakened to the sound of a smoke detector as many times as they awakened to the sound of their parent’s voice. Studies also prove that the sound of the parent’s voice in an emergency calm a child. The KidSmart® Vocal Smoke Detector allows you to record your own voice after the alarm to give your child instructions when the smoke detector would activate. Here is some information on the detector.  We encourage the use of these detectors in your child’s bedroom in addition to any existing smoke detectors in home.
 

KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm

The KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm is the only smoke detector that allows parents to record a personalized message in their own voice, instructing children to wake up and escape safely during an emergency. This human voice alarm was developed in response to documented research showing a familiar voice consistently awakens children from deep sleep, a circumstance in which traditional smoke alarms have proven shockingly unreliable with children.

Uses Your Voice!     Example: “Charlie, wake up there is a fire in the house, go out the window and go to Billy’s house and call 911”. 
 

Why Talking Smoke Alarms?

Facts About the Effectiveness of Standard Smoke Alarms:

• Most unimpaired adults awaken quickly and reliably to hallway smoke alarms
• Children, the elderly, people under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or who are sleep deprived have difficulty awakening to hallway smoke alarms
• Studies have found that only 6% of children aged from 6 to 15 woke reliably to a traditional smoke alarm signal
• The critical time frame to exit a residence during a fire is one minute or less.
• Why children seem to find it particularly difficult to awaken to hallway smoke alarms are:
  • Related to delayed prefrontal lobe development, this part of the brain develops mostly between ages 12 through 24
  • Duration of deep sleep (stage 4) decreases with increasing age, so younger children spend more time in deep sleep than older children and adults
  • Children may have higher electroencephalogram energy levels within sleep, making all stages of their sleep deeper and harder to disturb than adults
• Studies have shown that a familiar voice smoke alarm like the "KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm" woke 100% of the children studied in one minute or less
• The studies also found an additional benefit to a familiar voice alarm is that they helped children stay calmer in a traumatic situation.

Did you know that your current smoke detector may not be the best way to protect your child from a fire?  The KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm is the only smoke detector that allows parents to record a personalized message in their own voice, instructing children to wake up and escape safely during an emergency.  The KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm was developed in response to documented research showing a familiar voice consistently awakens children from deep sleep, a circumstance in which traditional smoke alarms have proven shockingly unreliable.  In addition to being the only Human Voice Alarm currently available to consumers, the KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm provides additional features for enhancing the safety of families prior and during a fire emergency.

These unique features include:

•  Personalized Instruction

The KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm also allows parents or guardians to record personalized escape instructions that can be customized for any individual household.

• Fire Drill Feature

Also unique to KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm is its fire drill feature, which enables parents to activate the unit and practice home fire drills with their families. The fire drill feature is fit with a time-delay function when activated, simulating a real-life emergency experience.

• Directional Alarm Speaker

This exclusive feature allows parents to aim the high-quality speaker directly at their child’s sleeping area to help ensure the human voice alarm is heard during an emergency.

• LOUD 85 dbs Output

KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm plays personalized commands alternately with a temporal tone siren at a loud 85 dbs output to help awaken children from deep sleep.

• Easy to Install

The KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm installs easily on most surfaces and includes mounting hardware and 4 Duracell AA batteries.
 

The KidSmart® Talking Smoke Alarm instruction manual instructs and encourages families to properly create a fire escape plan and implement regular fire drills using its fire drill feature.  These detectors may be purchased at White River Twp Fire Department Headquarters located at 850 S Mullinix Road in Greenwood. (State Road 37 and Smith Valley Road). If you have any questions about the detectors you may call someone in the Fire Prevention Division by dialing (317) 888-8337.  See a related story by clicking HERE.
 
    

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