First Alert

It might look like you're uttering a prayer, but the Onelink Safe & Sound invites you to give a voice command to your ceiling. The newest smart smoke detector from First Alert is on display at CES in Las Vegas, and it has an awesome new feature -- built-in voice services through either Alexa or Google Assistant.

The Onelink Safe & Sound combines a smart smoke and CO detector with a smart speaker. First Alert will offer two varieties of the Safe & Sound: one equipped with Alexa and one with Google Assistant.

Alexa is Amazon's digital assistant popularized by the Amazon Echo ( ). The Google Assistant powers the competitive Google Home ( ). With either model, you'll be able ask this smoke detector to play music, control your smart home, set a reminder, search the internet or perform any of your assistant's skills. It also has a built-in multicolored nightlight.

Onelink describes your ceiling as a great acoustic backdrop for a speaker, and I actually believe that, as the wide uniform surface should help direct sound into the room. Whether or not First Alert can fit a good speaker and microphones into a smoke detector without sacrificing safety is something we'll need to test.

First Alert certainly isn't the first company to build Alexa into a unique device. In fact, we saw a wide range of Alexa devices in 2017 ranging from refrigerators to robots to thermostats to lamps. That said, since your smoke detector has to be there anyway, it might as well do something cool. We're finally starting to see Google Assistant in more third party devices as well.

In addition to voice-enabled smarts, the Safe & Sound will send you notifications when your alarm sounds. Hopefully, those notifications will arrive promptly, as slow notifications were an issue with the previous First Alert smart detector we tested.

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The Safe & Sound will only be available as a hardwired detector. First Alert's other smart detector had wired and battery-powered versions. The decision to offer only wired detectors this time makes sense, as an always-listening microphone likely draws a lot of power and could kill a battery quickly.

A smoke detector combined with the abilities of a smart speaker certainly sounds appealing, and as long as the Safe & Sound combines all the pieces into a competent whole, this could be an awesome smart gadget. First Alert hasn't announced pricing or availability for the Onelink Safe & Sound yet. Stay tuned for updates as we find out more info at CES.

Update 7:45 p.m. PT: Adds information on the Google Assistant-powered version of the device.