Carbon Monoxide Detector for Motorhomes: Why I Now Run Two (And Why You Probably Should Too)

The standard CO alarm in a motorhome does its job. Until it can’t. Here’s what I added to the motorhome and why.

If you’ve got a motorhome or campervan, you almost certainly have a carbon monoxide detector on the wall. If you’ve got the FireAngel, you’re in good company. It’s the one most of us end up with. Motorhome-rated, unobtrusive, a couple of screw holes and it’s done.

Test it every Monday as the fire brigade tell you to, and get on with your life.

That’s fine. That’s what it’s designed to do. And I’m not here to talk you out of it.

But here’s the problem I kept coming back to. The FireAngel will sound an alarm when there’s a problem. In the van. When you’re in it. What it won’t do is contact you when you’re out for dinner and the dogs are back at the motorhome holding the fort.

That was the gap I needed to fill.

The X-Sense XC0C-IR: What It Actually Does

The X-Sense XC0C-IR is a smart carbon monoxide detector. You can pick one up on Amazon for well under £30. What makes it different from a standard alarm is the combination of a live display and a phone app.

The display shows you the parts-per-million CO reading in real time. Whatever’s showing on that screen is also pushed to the X-Sense app on your phone, available on both iOS and Android. So if something changes while you’re away from the van, your phone tells you about it. Immediately.

For anyone leaving pets in a motorhome, this is the thing you didn’t know you needed.

A Few Practical Things Worth Knowing

It’s not motorhome-rated. X-Sense are upfront about this, and it’s worth understanding what that actually means. The FireAngel is specifically certified for use in motorhomes, campervans and caravans, which accounts for things like vibration from the road. The X-Sense doesn’t carry that certification. It doesn’t have moving parts, so it’s not as though it’s going to rattle itself to pieces, but X-Sense have covered themselves and you should know that going in.

This is exactly why running both makes sense. The FireAngel handles the motorhome-rated alarm. The X-Sense handles the remote monitoring. They’re doing different jobs.

It connects to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, not the 5GHz band. This matters if you’re running Starlink or a dual-band router, as most of us are now. Make sure you’re connecting to the 2.4GHz network during setup and you won’t have any issues.

It runs on a CR123A battery for the Wi-Fi connection and has a ten-year operational lifespan. If the battery warning does ever come on, you swap it out. Simple enough.

False Alarms and Fry-Ups

One thing that drove me up the wall with a previous alarm in the van was that it was a standard domestic smoke alarm running on a nine-volt battery. Every time I cooked, I was hiding it under a cushion or pulling the battery out. Absolutely not ideal. The X-Sense CO detector doesn’t false alarm in the same way. It’s reading for carbon monoxide specifically, not fumes from the frying pan, so cooking isn’t triggering it.

The app also keeps an event history so you can see if anything has registered. Mine has been clean since I set it up, which is exactly the kind of boring outcome you’re hoping for.

What I’ve Got Running Now?

Both. The FireAngel stays on the wall because it’s the right tool for motorhome use. The X-Sense sits alongside it because it does something the FireAngel can’t. Between them, for less than £30 total on top of what I already had, I’ve got a rated alarm and remote monitoring.

If you’ve got dogs, or any pets travelling with you, and you didn’t know this kind of device existed, now you do. It’s the kind of thing that sits there doing nothing for years, and that’s exactly what you want from it.

X-Sense XC0C-IR on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4yUFdCO

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