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No pet owner wants to think about what might happen to their animal friend in the event of a fire. As a dog owner, I know I don’t. But fires do happen, and pets can’t follow your family fire plan. Rescue Retriever wants to change that. I spoke with the company during CES’ Pepcom event, and learned how it’s working to make it easier for firefighters to find your pets in the event of a fire. (Rescue Retriever first launched back in March of 2024. The company was started by two brothers—one of whom is a former firefighter.)
During a fire, pets tend to run to where they feel safe—maybe that’s under the bed, or somewhere tucked away in a room. That makes it difficult for firefighters to locate pets during an emergency: In a situation where seconds count, they don’t have the ability to search every corner of a burning home. Unfortunately, as a result, pets sometimes don’t make it out. Rescue Retriever wants to change that.
Rescue Retriever’s smoke detector is installed near your pet’s safe space
In an attempt to solve that problem, Rescue Retriever’s smoke detector works a bit differently. It isn’t supposed to be placed where your current smoke detector is; rather, the idea is to place it where your pet is most likely to go when scared. If you know they like to hide under your bed, for example, you can place the detector there. Once the device detects smoke during a fire, a bright light begins to strobe inside, spread out by a mix of holes placed throughout the device. (Even under the bright lights of Pepcom, the strobe looked intense to me.) That way, firefighters can look out for the strobing lights when trying to locate pets in your home. There’s even an accompanying sticker you can place on your home’s window, so firefighters know you have a pet to look out for.
The device is silent, so as to not scare your pets away from their hiding space. It wouldn’t do any good to have a beacon for firefighters to locate your pet, only to have them scurry off because of an alarm.
The Rescue Retriever Fire Tag lights up in an emergency
Credit: Lifehacker
New from the company this year is the Fire Tag, which brings the strobe light from the main unit to a small tag you can place on your pet’s collar. The tag syncs up to the main unit using RFID. When the main unit detect smoke and starts strobing, the Fire Tag will pick up the signal and follow suit.
What do you think so far?
It’s great that the main unit doesn’t make a noise to scare your dog, but that doesn’t guarantee they will go to the spot where the smoke alarm is installed—maybe the house smoke alarm scares them again or they don’t follow their usual pattern and hide somewhere away from where you placed the main unit. Having a Fire Tag on their collar would give firefighters a better shot at locating the pet, wherever they may be in the home.
Rescue Retriever tells me these tags have a range of up to a quarter mile, so if your dog runs away from your house, their collar might still light up. Even still, the Fire Tag opens up, allowing you to place a tracker like an AirTag inside, so if your dog runs out of that quarter mile range, you can still track them if they come within Bluetooth range of a device within the Find My network.
Rescue Retriever says the Fire Tag is ready for production, and, when available, can be purchased either individually ($29.99), or as part of a larger bundle with the main Rescue Retriever unit ($89.99). The main unit can be purchased now for $39.99, but it also comes in bundles with accessories for varying prices.
