If the Wi-Fi goes out and your smarthome devices lose connectivity, it’s mostly just an inconvenience. However, what about devices that are potential lifesavers, like the Nest Protect?
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When the internet stops working in your home, a lot of smarthome device functionality disappears until the internet comes back on. Most Wi-Fi cameras, for example, pretty much turn into a brick when they lose connectivity. However, other devices still work just fine, albeit in a more “dumbhome” fashion—like smart thermostats. The Nest Protect smart smoke alarm fits in the latter category.
So What Happens When the Wi-Fi Goes Out?
Long story short, the smoke detection capabilities of your Nest Protect still work just fine when it loses its connection. You won’t be able to control or manage it remotely from your phone or take advantage of all the other cool features from the app, but the alarm itself will still act like any other regular smoke alarm—it will sound an alarm when it detects smoke.
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In fact, you can set up the Nest Protect without ever connecting it to Wi-Fi or linking it to your Nest account at all. Granted, it’s just a more expensive version of a regular smoke alarm at that point, but it goes to show that it’s designed to operate without Wi-Fi.
If You Have Multiple Nest Protect Units
If you have two or more interconnected Nest Protects in your home, you still don’t need to worry about the Wi-Fi going down. Nest Protects use their own wireless network of sorts to connect to each other. So even if your home’s Wi-Fi goes kaput and one of your Nest Protects detects smoke (thus, tripping the alarm), all of the other Nest Protects will go off as well.
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However, you do need a Wi-Fi connection and the Nest app to set up more than one Nest Protect in the first place, since any additional units gain their settings from a previously-configured Nest Protect device.
Once they’re all set up and ready to go, though, Wi-Fi isn’t required for them to keep on keeping you safe—you just won’t be able to control them or receive alerts on your phone.
