The Leeo Smart Alert is instantly an attractive product simply because it costs much less than the Nest Protect, but at what price? The Leeo certainly looks the part of a high-end tech product. Once again we have something in “gets dirty immediately” white. I find that ironic given the dirty job that the device must do.
The Leeo provides both smoke and carbon monoxide detection. Well, actually that’s not true – it listens for alarms from your existing “dumb” detectors and then it sends alerts to your smartphone. More importantly, it makes decisions on what to do next based on your response to that alarm.
It will provide you with local emergency numbers, and if you don’t respond quickly enough to the alerts the Leeo will phone a backup number, usually that of a friend or family member.
The other neat thing about the Leeo is that it is not a straight replacement for backplate-mounted smoke alarms the way that the Nest is. This simply plugs into an empty outlet. There’s no installation.
What’s the advantage of this? Well, if you already invested in several detectors, this is by far the cheapest way to turn them all into connected units. The way the system is set up, it listens for the beep code standards of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, so other noises will not set it off.
Customers report that it works reliably, so you are not likely to get false alarms. I have to say that this is just a genius idea. Even if you don’t already have detectors in your home, this plus a few “dumb” standard alarms is still a cheaper option than buying several Nests.