Nest Labs announced Friday the recall of "Nest Protect" due to a software glitch that causes its wave gesture feature to function incorrectly.
On a post in the company website, the recall covers all Nest Protect alarms worldwide. The home automation company said that they discovered the defect during their laboratory tests and not through customer complaints.
Nest Labs CEO Tony Fadell, released a letter: ""We identified this problem ourselves and are not aware of any customers who have experienced this, but the fact that it could even potentially happen is extremely important to me and I want to address it immediately."
According to their tests, the software glitch causes a wave to be misinterpreted by the alarm. This is alarming though because it can delay the alarm in case of fire. Thus, they decided to do a global recall until they have fixed the issue. Nest will be working with safety agencies in the US, Canada, and UK for the next three months to ensure safety.
However, Nest clarified that the recall does not cover those who already purchased the alarm. They will just send a software update to alarms that are connected to a Nest account through Wi-Fi. The recall will cover only those that are still in stores to ensure that no one will purchase an outdated alarm. For now, the wave gesture will be disabled for the active Nest accounts.
The Nest Protect is an alarm that can detect carbon and monoxide through its sensors. It can also detect the difference between smoke and steam. It became popular because of its Nest Wave feature that allows users to turn off a false alarm just by doing a simple hand wave. Furthermore, it can be integrated to a user smartphone for control through Wi-Fi.
In February, Google bought Nest Labs for $3.2 billion as part of its plan to venture in home automation.
