2026 and current state of smoke detectors in new build codes is crap

Y'all know I'm hooking up my buddy building a 7000sf house in the East TN mountains. For some reason he's trusted me for his entire smart infrastructure and I don't think he has any idea what he's getting into. He's focused on digging a well, driving to SC to pick up his temu elevator from the shipyards and most recently installing a spiral stairway himself.

So I've created several linked project management spreadsheets with task and timeline objectives for his electrician, builder and plumber for specific smart doodads like his plumbed thermador coffee machine and plumbed robot vacuums. Every single item needing purchased down to the individual patch panel cables is being tracked. Overkill yes but I feel better knowing every single thing we need

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Ok tl;Dr I realized I had completely overlooked the smoke detectors. the good news is nothing has been purchased yet so I'm thinking this should a slam dunk right? Just need one of the multiple smart units by one of our friends in the industry like kidde or first alert, right? RIGHT!?!?!?!!?!? This should be simple in 2026.

frick no. Apparently Codes has zero requirement to handle what I would consider the most important feature of a hard wired system.. WHAT frickING ROOM IS ON FIRE.

You heard it right. State of the art new house build and your option is shitty builder grade smoke and CO detectors that buzz the whole house when a detector goes off. Good luck figuring out where the fire is in a 7k SF house. ...Have fun, don't die.

So there's pathetic options out there. Shitty nest detectors tied to Google that cost $150 each and have ZERO usable HA integrations or .well.. That's about it if you want to know where the fire is in your brand new home. what in the actual frick?

So I asked AI and the best they came up with outside of the nest bullshite was to interrupt the signal when it goes off with a little zwave doodad in the line. Worst than useless and still no room level data. Just 1 or 0 for the whole system.

I was about to suggest a shitty hack..install a shadow x-sense system like I have in my 70s reno house that would place an xsense unit next to each of the builder units that would also go off and report on the event so at least something would give him that info. pitiful, but its the best CAD's brain could come up with.

But hitting up the x-sense site those guys have done one better.. They just came out with units that can plug into the hard wired system and that meets codes and do everything we want and keep it LOCAL! The kicker is because they're new your can get a six pack for like $150.

He needs 18 units so for around $500 we can do everything we wanted and fix this HUGE gap in his smart home.

I see no downside and the builder has read the specs on these and signed off on it for the install.

i pointed this out to gemini and chatgpt and they were like "oh cool! you found something better, yes you should do that!"

Still amazed this is the current state of the industry.


eta i guess a link would be helpful.

XP0J-iA Smart Hardwired Smoke and CO Alarm with Voice Alerts