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Lower temperatures slightly increase the battery's internal resistance, pushing it just past the low power alarm threshold.

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This.

Thank you. This mystery has haunted me for years! To solve it, I will now place a small candle on the floor under the alarm every night so I can rest with peace of mind.

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Transistor gain absolutely decreases with temperature.

That's a waste of energy.

Me, I'm going to pack around it with some insulation so that it isn't exposed to the cold air of the house.

Mine don’t have batteries but you have made me wonder what happens if there’s a power cut

You really hope it's not from a fire in the electrical box.

Also hope it is not from a blood thirsty maniac as well

This once happened to me AT AN AIRBNB. No one knew where the smoke detector was, and when it was finally found, it was at the top of a high-ceilinged stairwell out of everyone's reach.

Long story short, we ended up smashing it with a broom handle to make it shut up and emailing the owner to explain. Hopefully the replacement was installed somewhere more accessible...

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Corrected a mistake in my original comment: I accidentally wrote that resistance was decreased instead of increased.

How cold do you let your place get at night?

Yup. I figured this out when I dropped a phone in the pool long ago and I dried it out, it worked, but every single time the temp dropped below 45 (SoCal, so not too often) when I was outside, my phone batter would drop from whatever it’s at to 1%

When you replace the batteries, replace during midnight, so the battery will go out during the day..!

They don't go off.

I'm pretty sure all new builds (at least in my area) are required to have either shared battery backups (battery + hardwire) or a 10-year sealed battery

In my part of the world it's not the battery, they just go off when the humidity is over 85%.

Because the batteries last on exactly a cycle divisible by 24 hours? Source?

Well, my smoke detector batteries died during the day, so, OP's statement is not a blanket statement right?

Anyway, let me ask you this, do you change the battery during the 3am time or wait until morning?

Let me know when your house burns down

r/woooosh

Don't worry, I understood the joke

I used to walk my dog around the neighborhood and there was a house a few blocks over with a beeping smoke detector … for months! Idk how they lived like that, but every time I walked past I could still hear it.

My house is 130 years old but I had them put in when the electrics had to be replaced a few years ago

If it is older people living there they may not have been able to hear the beeping

Nah, the only people I ever saw coming out of there were teenagers and middle aged parents

Oh, in that case it should have been r/YourJokeButWorse

Replace your smoke detector with a modern one that has a non-removable lithium battery that lasts 10 years. Then it becomes a very infrequent problem.

I rent

Ask your landlord. Check the expiry date or manufacture date on the smoke detector. They don’t last forever and need to be replaced about every 10 years anyway, so if it’s old, you might have a case.

I definitely remove them at 3am, who knows if I'm putting new ones in at 3am or 9am.

And there’s those people that tune it out and make videos with it beeping in the background like they don’t hear it.

What about the YouTube channels where you hear the beep for months, lol

Untrue. My smoke detector died at 7am on my day off last week.

Those are also the hours in which your dog will vomit on the carpet.

Had one die at around 5 am once. I panicked and called my dad to come before work so he could bring a ladder and battery. He brought three dead batteries. I have no car and no mental health to deal with that sound. After he left I got the kids up and out the door for school. Called apartment manager and they had no batteries after a few months before telling me they have to change them and not us. Then saying I had to. So had to Uber to CVS and buy batteries to change it. I cannot handle that sound and will do about anything to stop it.

I made a meme of this a while ago.

DUH! of course! . . . Why didn't I tought about that before?

And it explain also why in winter too, we set the heating at 18°C at night and 21°C during the day, but the ceiling itself being the attic is most likelly quite colder (the insulation is trash, I need to redo it, maybe this spring?)

I did a job at this super huge house (2000s, idk exactly). Four stories. I had to be on each story four 20-30 minutes & EVERY smoke detector was beeping. This family had lived there for a while, the house had that lived in feel they had kids running around toys all over. I even made mention to the beeps "Sounds like you guys need some batteries huh! Hehe" She gave me a "🤨🤨🤨" then said "Okay I'll be upstairs if you need anything:)" Like her look to me didn't say she thought I was rude, but that she was completely dumbfounded by why I would say such an off the wall remark. It was so weird ...

This is generally true, because batteries encounter greater internal resistance and voltage-drop...when they get cold.

During the day, heat rises, so that last gasp of life can hold on till the next cold cycle, at night...

Yes! Or cats and hairballs!!

Those people must not be human because I cannot comprehend how that is possible. 😫

I install fire alarms for a living and to hear that in videos drives me up the wall.

It doesn't have to get very cold; only slightly colder than during the day.