Cooking is the leading cause of home fires and home fire injuries, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Earlier this year, Rhett and his family avoided becoming part of that statistic thanks to Alexa Guard.
Rhett turned on Alexa Guard’s Away mode before leaving his house one day. His 15-year-old daughter was home alone, but turning on the Alexa feature provides him some reassurance. As his daughter started cooking dinner, Rhett received an alert from Alexa Guard notifying him of a potential smoke alarm. He checked every camera in the house—and all he could see was smoke.
Aligning with National Fire Prevention Week, read more from Rhett in his own words about how Alexa Guard was critical in helping keep his family and home safe:
Alexa was instrumental in helping me save my house and teenage daughter from smoke damage. You hear stories on the news and online, but never think it will happen to you. It recently happened to my family and I hope others can learn from it.
One day this year, my family decided to have chicken and dumplings for dinner, so I asked my daughter to boil the chicken for it to be ready when my wife and I returned home. After she put the chicken in boiling water on the stove, she decided to lay down and watch TV in the living room while it cooked. Apparently, she was more tired than she thought and she fell asleep on the couch.
Next thing I know, away from my home, I get an alert of a possible smoke alarm detected from Alexa Guard within my Alexa app. I opened the app, listened to the audio clip, and heard smoke alarms going off. I pulled up my home security cameras, and in every single one—and I’m talking about six different cameras throughout our home—I could barely see anything. Smoke filled the house.
I called my daughter’s phone and fortunately she woke up and I got through to her. She was hysterical. She told me she fell asleep and the chicken boiled over, water boiled out, the chicken burned in the pot, and as a result, smoke started filling the house. Thankfully, there was no fire threat, but there was potential for smoke inhalation and suffocation.
From there, I got her to start opening doors, grab oscillating fans from the garage, and turn up the overhead fans to get air circulating. You know when you wake up and you’re just in shock. In this moment that I reached her, the smoke alarm was going off, she could barely see, she was having trouble breathing, and she had no idea what was going on. Panic set in and I can only imagine how startling that was. Luckily, she was safe and we had her sit outside to try and get fresh air.
Had I not had Alexa Guard on, there’s no telling how long she would’ve slept with the smoke increasing in intensity. Luckily, Alexa caught it, and it all started about a year ago when I saw an article online about things you didn’t know Alexa could do. I knew most of the features listed, but when Alexa Guard was featured, I had to look it up. After reading into it, I thought it was a simple feature to use whenever I left the house, so I set it up and started saying, “Alexa, I’m leaving,” to activate it.
To be honest, at first, I didn’t think it would do anything. Supposedly Alexa Guard can detect the sound of smoke alarms and breaking glass. How is it actually going to know if someone breaks in? I decided to test it out. I activated Alexa Guard and played audio of glass breaking. As soon as it played, Alexa alerted me of glass breaking and I was pleasantly surprised that it truly picked up the noise.
Today, I have multiple Amazon devices, including some Echo Dots and an Echo Show. And because of this incident, they’re essential. I’ve got one in almost every room of my house. They’re used for safety, they’re used to turn our lights on and off, they share with us the news and information, and so much more. People don’t use Alexa to the fullest ability, but I hope they can see how it’s helped us immensely.
We are incredibly happy that Rhett, his family, and his home are safe and that Alexa was able to help. Learn more about our free Alexa Guard feature, which helped Rhett keep his daughter and home safe, or upgrade to Alexa Guard Plus for more offerings.
If you have a story of your own about how you use Alexa, we'd love to hear it and will continue sharing some of our favorite #AlexaStories. You can email us or tag us on Twitter or Instagram @alexa99 or #AlexaStories. Additionally, to learn more about how Alexa is helping people in different ways, you can watch Alexa Stories videos at amazon.com/alexastories.
