Battery Smoke Alarms Get Futuristic: The Signal

Were all familiar with battery smoke alarms: those white, round boxy things hanging from our ceilings that were reminded to change regularly. Many of us neglect this duty, however, leading to additional needless deaths through preventable or predictable fires.

Many Scandinavian designers are now looking to change that.

Plenty of people think its soulless, or at least a little bit suspect, to enjoy Scandinavian furniture with its clean Danish lines, its Ingmar Bergman austerity: who wants to live among all that starkness? Their work, however, makes it seem almost appealing. They make it seem cost-effective and functional, too, with sleek, modular furniture that allow for a variety of room combinations over time at a fraction of typical prices.

Their experimental smoke detector concept combines this austerity of appearance with this emphasis on usability and function. It resembles a raindrop slowly pooling and falling from your ceiling. Whats more, the housing is glow-in-the-dark, and sticky glow-in-the-dark arrows come included with the package, allowing kids to have fun while learning the ins and outs of fire exits and general fire safety.

The real innovation, however, comes when the batteries on the alarm run out. When the power fails, these smoke detectors open up, revealing bright and complicated innards. The aerodynamic sleekness is reversed, turned into something messy, complicated, and obvious. And like that, you know that you need to change your battery.

Its the simple changes that bring about revolutions. It doesnt take much to build a smoke detector whose housing opens up obtrusively when its time to change the batteries. There arent any fancy additional costs here. But worries about testing your smoke detectors--those mysterious white boxes on your ceiling--vanish overnight. Does this indicate a new direction for smoke detector manufacturers everywhere?

These new smoke alarms may be only the first step in a long revolution--interior design that doesnt forget that to spell functional, sometimes youre going to have to spell the word fun first.

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