So a computer can make Ken Jennings his bitch on Jeopardy, yet basic smoke detector technology still seems to be stuck in the 1960's.

We were up for about two hours one recent night -- before, during, and after the quest to find which smoke detector was beeping in our house.

Why do they make the beeps so infrequent when it's just in the early stages of dying? I mean, it's a good idea in theory. But in practice it's just freaking annoying. When the beeps happen once every 10 minutes or so, and it's nighttime, you first try to ignore it. Then you decide you need to shut it up, only you have to wait around for a couple of beep cycles until you can actually figure out which one it is. Unless you want to smash them all with a hammer, which seems shortsighted.

Wouldn't it be better to just program them so they work normally right up until the point where they have just a few days of safe use left, and then make them beep more regularly?
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