Fire safety experts recommend testing your smoke alarm monthly, but many people don’t do this as often as they should. So, the 2nd gen Nest Protect has a microphone: it can listen to its horn and speaker tests and confirm that they’re working. This helps make sure Nest Protect will speak and sound an alarm when there’s smoke or carbon monoxide.
During Sound Check and Safety Checkup, Nest Protect's microphone is on for a few seconds — just long enough to make sure the speaker and horn are working. During that time, the microphone is checking to hear Nest Protect make this sound:
Listen to it nowSound Check runs automatically once a month, at the time of day you choose. If your Nest Protect has a working Wi-Fi connection, you'll receive an alert on your phone letting you know when it's about to happen.
Safety Checkup is a manual test that runs only when you tell it to. You can either press the Nest button on a Protect, or use the Nest app to start the test with a 2nd gen Nest Protect. The microphone is on only at the end of Safety Checkup, when Nest Protect is checking its speaker and horn.
Learn more about Safety Checkup
How long is the microphone on for?
Nest Protect's microphone is on for a few seconds during Sound Check and Safety Checkup, in order to record the test sound and compare the recording with the test sound it expects to hear.
The audio from Sound Check and Safety Checkup doesn't leave your Nest Protect and isn't transmitted to Nest servers.
Can I turn off Sound Check?
Yes. You can turn off Sound Check during the setup process or by going into Settings in the Nest app.
You can also choose to skip a test any month. Once you've enabled notifications, Nest Protect can send you a message about five minutes before it runs a test, where you can choose to skip this month's test. Nest Protect will try again next month.
If you disable Sound Check, but you still want to test the speaker and horn, just run a Safety Checkup. The microphone in Nest Protect will listen for the speaker and horn every time you run a Safety Checkup, even if Sound Check is disabled.
We know that your home is a private space, and we've designed Sound Check and Safety Checkup with that in mind. You can read more about our commitment to user privacy here.