What are the best smoke alarms on the market today?

I need 3 for my home. And they need to be loud!

Public Comments

1. Ours are wonderful, I don't know what brand they are but they all went off three days ago at four in the morning, very loud for their size, although easily frightened. I say that because when the firemen got here they couldn't figgure out what was upsetting them, so my entire family, the firemen, and the EMS that showed up minutes later ran around our house with chairs and unplugged the things... honestly I don't know any good brands, I'd just suggest looking at saftey rating on a couple diffrent brands in the setting you would be using them in IE: industrial, or home use
2. Ask you local fire department. I did, and was surprised by the answer. They said " one that works" They suggested the Dollar Stores. Yes, you can spend lots of money for ozone detectors, etc., but they are more concerned that you have one that works.
3. Wives !!
4. Brand is not as important as type. The two basic types are ionization and photoelectric. Photoelectrics are by far the best. Also one can buy combination photo and ion. I prefer just photo though, to minimize false alarms. If you will power them with AC, I recommend getting them without standby batteries. We find too many with batteries that have been taken down. When the batteries die, the detectors chirp. By today's rules in most of the US, the detectors must be interconnected so that one sets off all. The affected one sounds different from the others