Owl Home Reviews 27

I ordered 4 units on Sept 4, 2025 with a scheduled delivery of Oct 1. It is now December 8th with no communication from Owl other than a banner on their website that pushes the delivery date every month to the next month,

3 out of the 5 that I bought to protect my home are defective. They make a persistent high pitched noise when plugged in to power. The ios app is so incredibly poorly made. I've been waiting almost 5 months for replacements through support. They dragged this out beyond the window to claw back the charge on my credit card. Communication very poor. I'm not sure this is a serious company.

I have 11 of these units and 7 were the first generation. They are great and the customer service from Owl has been first rate. They readily replaced 2 and sent me 2 mounting rings when I misplaced mine after a reinstallation. Highly recommend

Quick replacement.

I have set it and forget it as it should be. It works!!

I really want to like these, but they make noise. There's a very high-pitched chirping sound coming out of them that I can hear in a quiet room, and in my bedroom it's loud enough to keep me awake, which forced me to unplug it.

Returned the items. One month later, still no refund, had to contact multiple times and threaten to reverse charges. Shouldn’t be that hard.

Ordered with international express and you shipped it normal post. Hasn’t arrived yet and is scheduled to arrive on Friday when I leave the country for 3 1/2 months!

It’s all about customer service. Even with a fantastic product - which the Owl smoke detector is - solving issues quickly and professionally is paramount. I had a connection to HomeKit issue which the “Online” representatives painlessly walked me through. The only negative is that the issue I had could be avoided with accurate and comprehensive instructions - both printed and online. Great product and I will be purchasing another unit for a second location in the house.

Great little device. I had a little problem setting it up but their support responded to a text within a few minutes, even at 7 PM their time, and walked me through the problem. Highly recommended.

The detectors are solid and were quick and easy to set up on my network, connect to Owl's mobile app, and add to Apple Home. And Owl's customer service is impeccable.

After watching the Shane Whatley youtube review I contacted Owl and they confirmed the inter-connectivity issue was solved specifically with 1st Alert. Based on this I bought one and it indicated that firmware v1.19 was the latest. I have 5 new 1st Alert BRK SC7010BV hardwired detectors I want it to work with. I installed the Owl and triggered the 1st Alerts and the Owl did not respond. Using the support text feature in the Owl app I had a long conversation and finally discovered that there is a v1.2 firmware so that was downloaded and the Owl responded to the 1st Alerts. I used the "Sound Alarm" button on the Owl app but the 1st Alerts did not respond. I noticed that when the Owl responded to the 1st Alerts the light flashed red but with the "Sound Alarm" button it flashed blue. I suspected the "Sound Alarm" merely triggered the alarm and did not send a signal down the red wire to the 1st Alerts. Burning some tissues under the Owl caused a proper response with a red light and the 1st Alerts responded.

I'll be keeping the Owl Wired but it takes too much of an iPhone approach and needs to lean more toward dumb hardware given lives are on the line. Below are my list things I don't like.

There should be a physical way to test the unit not just via the app and it should send out the red wire signal as if a real detection.

It relies too much on WiFi. One should be able to add it to the app fully via bluetooth and test it properly without WiFi. Wifi settings should be a secondary action. Currently any change to the Wifi like a password change requires deleting it from the app and adding it fresh. There's also no way to confirm Wifi settings in the app.

There's a bunch of info on the back of the unit like the HomeKit code and a list of what the different colored lights mean. None of this is in the manual.

Physically it is exactly 4" and the mounting bracket fits inside the detector and does not extend outside like all others. This results in a thin bracket and latch points that are easily distorted when screwed down. Since it's exactly 4" any drywall cutting inaccuracies result in a visible gap.

Very good customer service, will answer questions on their chat service very quickly and solve problems u may have.

Amazing product once set up works perfectly. Fits it and plays nice with other HomeKit devices. The monitor sensor is an added bonus to use. If you have a HomeKit home, I recommend this Smoke and CO detector from Owl

Unintuitive setup process, non-standard form factor, doesn't have any indication of whether it has power or is running on battery.

No instructions on how to install it end-to-end, their website is lack-luster at best with more marketing crap than any useful information. There are no videos on youtube of it either. No self testing capability.

They didn't provide drywall anchors or a cover plate, just small things to show product maturity or atleast for the price they charge for this wall decor.

All I have at the moment is a hole in my wall (thanks to non-standard form factor) and a hole in my pocket.

Don't buy this. Please.

After woking with Owl tech support and getting proper cable to charge device it now appears to be working correctly. Documentation could be improved.

Customer service was great. Owl wired super easy to install. Apps work just as it should, and the integration into HomeKit is seamless. Thread would have been have been nice, but it works just fine. I have 2 more to install yet. So will update once they are all connected.

Update:
After engaging with support via the app, I'm set up and ready to go. The support was shockingly quick and my issue was resolved very quickly.

I'll likely buy enough to replace the Nest units now.