HomePod Sound Recognition
By taking advantage of the always-on microphone inside the HomePod, it means you don’t need to necessarily invest in buying new internet-connected smoke alarm systems — HomePod can simply enhance the utility of the existing “dumb” offline smoke alarms already installed in your home.
To enable Sound Recognition, open the Home app and go to Home Settings -> Safety & Security screen.
It then sends a notification to your devices if it hears the alarm.
Previously:
Update (2023-07-28): bcFromSanJose:
HomePod Alarms detected that my smoke alarms were going off and Siri told me in my AirPods Pro. I ran back and discovered a forgotten jar candle had gone nuts. Roaring flames, quickly extinguished.
Apple literally saved my apartment from burning down.
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When I heard about this, I enabled it in the Home app then proceeded to test by pressing the “test” button on one of my smoke detectors. I didn’t get any notifications. I don’t know if the alarm from real smoke sounds different than the test tone or what.
I had enabled this before traveling overseas, and it sent me a notification that my smoke alarm had activated. It was right - I had an iPad configured with ManyThing and was able to check in. The smoke alarm was sounding. After a minute, it turned off, although I had a friend check the house. So, the smoke alarm ended up being a false alarm, but the Sound Recognition feature worked really well.
