If you’re buying now, make sure to get UL 217 8th edition standard in whatever brand you get.

Not only are they much less likely to give false alarms, they are better at alarming earlier at detection of real fires. source

Warning for the USA: while the new UL 217 8th edition standard are on sale, the law allows retailers to sell through their stock of the old ones. You’ll still get a working smoke detector, but you’ll be missing out on this new better technology/standard.

I should do that too. I’m pretty sure I changed them out less than a decade ago, but

• there’s one chirping in the storage room I should hunt down
• I don’t know if there’s a working one in the basement
• there’s a really annoying one in the hallway that announces when dinner has been cooked enough

But also a way to respond

• I think the fire extinguishers are long expired
• to replace I bought these fire blankets that will never expire but I need to hang them convenient to likely fire risks

You have shamed me into installing all new detectors. I know that the internals fade and stop working right after about 10 years…I’m 20+ years in my house. This weekend is smoke detector changeout week - thanks for nothing, friend - now my Saturday is shot ;)

Get the optical triggered versions without the radioactive americium. The old cheap americium type seem to be getting insufficient americium which causes them to go off randomly, prematurely, or for every little VOC increase. I assume it is deregulation based criminality at the heart of the issue. Can’t trust anything any more.