Hardware startup Birdi secures $700K as it relocates to San Francisco

Is the smoke in your kitchen just burning cookies? No problem (unless you wanted cookies). With a new device you can shut the alarm off without even going to the smoke alarm. Just do it over your smartphone. (But seriously: don’t burn the cookies.)

A Williamsburg-based hardware company has designed a device, called Birdi, that takes the profile of a smoke detector but performs many more services, and it just raised a $700,000 seed round, according to Tech Cocktail. That’s on top of an IndieGogo campaign that reached 144% of its $50,000 goal.

Birdi checks pollen and air pollution, gives you control over your smoke alarm from your smartphone, orders itself new batteries for you and if there’s definitely a fire it makes the call to the fire department on your behalf, via your home WiFi.

It’s reminiscent in some ways of another air monitoring device, the Airbeam, from Habitatmap, which we covered in February.

The team has joined Highway1, in San Francisco. That’s the same incubator wearables venture Ringly joined six months or so before it put its device up for pre-order.

Birdi’s website shows a team of six, including two cofounders. It also still lists a Williamsburg address. We’ve reached out to find out if the team plans to come back once their time in the accelerator is finished.