Prevention vs Reaction: How Modern Technology Stops Fires Before They Begin
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” We’ve all heard that saying before, which is why we have smoke alarms throughout the house: to let us know when smoke — and fire — happens. And some properties even have sprinklers in the ceiling. These spray water over flames to extinguish or diminish them by the time the fire department arrives.
You shouldn’t have to live in fear of hearing that alarm beep or coming home to a wet kitchen. And what property manager or Airbnb host wants to get a call from a panicked renter about property damage? With the majority of home fires beginning in the kitchen — cooking being the main reason — it’s important to be protected.
Preventing stove fires in the first place means you’ll never worry about cooking again. The Wallflower Smart Monitor notifies you before smoke has time to develop, eliminating the risk of stove fires, and the majority of kitchen fires, from even beginning.
Sprinklers and smoke alarms activate when there’s already a problem in progress.
The smoke alarm goes off when smoke rises and enters it, setting off that shrill beep. If you’re nearby, you might be able to stop the fire. Otherwise, it could already be a lost cause and you just have moments to get to safety.
The same with a sprinkler: it only starts spraying water (10–25 gallons per minute) once a large enough fire has generated enough heat to set it off.
But what if you’re not even home? What if you forgot to turn the stove off and left?
Sure, your alarm will sound, and the sprinkler will go off, but neither of those helps you if you’re unable to stop the fire before there’s substantial fire or water damage. If you have one of the smart alarms, it can notify you, but of course, that’s after the fire has been going for some time.
By the time you get back to deal with the issue, this might be the scene that awaits you:
Why not prevent stove fires in the first place?
Wallflower plugs into your stove’s power outlet. It notifies you via the app whenever the stove is turned on, if you’ve forgotten to turn it off and you’ve moved about 1000 feet away from the home (it uses geo-fencing), and whether it’s been on for longer than usual (it learns your cooking behavior).
You’ll be reminded about the stove before fire — and smoke — starts. Unlike with the smoke alarm, if you leave the house and the stove is still on, Wallflower will notify you when you’re still close enough to come back and turn it off before fire even has a chance to begin.
Smoke alarms and sprinklers deal with the fire once it’s started which gives you little to no time to stop damage.
With the Wallflower, you can relax. It alerts you before smoke even develops, which saves you stress, time, and money.
After all, the only thing you should have to worry about when cooking is how it tastes.
Victor Jablokov is the CEO of Wallflower Labs, a technology company based in Boston, MA that is developing products to reduce home fires caused by cooking. Learn more at wallflower.com.
