Regular fire alarms are great, if blind panic helps you feel safer. “Hey! Wake up! BEEP BEEP BEEP! There’s a deadly emergency going on somewhere in your house! Guess where? BEEP BEEP BEEP! Or maybe it’s a false alarm! Good luck figuring it out! BEEP BEEP BEEP! And here’s a deafening noise to help you think it through! BEEP BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP!”

Oh, definitely, they’re better than nothing. And they’re worse than these First Alert ONELink Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detectors. These, my oxygen-reliant friend, are not your run-of-the-mill smoke-sniffers. For one thing, their electrochemical carbon monoxide sensor will remind you if you’ve left your Hummer running in the dining room. For another, its photoelectric smoke sensor won’t get all frantic about a little shower steam or some burnt toast. So there goes the “boy who beeped ‘fire’” factor that plagues lesser detectors.

But the feature that really comes in handy when your house is full of smoke is the ability for multiple alarms to wirelessly link up, so when one goes off, they all go off. And then they tell you, in plain English, where in the house the smoke-detecting or CO-huffing unit is located. If you’ve ever stumbled blindly into a burning kitchen, you’ll know this is nothing to cough at.

If you’re in a life-or-death situation, and the only person around to help you is your non-verbal, easily excitable friend, well, you take whatever help you can get. But wouldn’t you wish you’d brought along the articulate friend who only gets upset in moments of actual crisis? That friend is waiting for you now. Its name is the First Alert ONELink Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detector Two-Pack. And unlike your other friends, it’ll never make unkind remarks about your haircut or weight. You need a REALLY fancy smoke detector for that.

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