Unlike so many other Jetsons-like technological advancements for the home, new and improved household safety products often don't require digital enhancement.

Exhaustive research, deft materials engineering and, instead of "smart" technology, plain old smarts about how we live at home, are more likely to give birth to the things we need to protect ourselves from ourselves at home.

Each year, the Washington, D.C. based nonprofit Home Safety Council Home SafetyCouncil (HSC), which dedicates itself to preventing home-related injuries, acknowledges companies that produce some of the best goods that help make households safer places to live.

This year 15 products to be honored at the Home Safety Council's annual Salute to Home Safety Awards dinner on June 30 in Washington, DC, include everything from a new way to change a battery in a smoke alarm to window fashions.

"Manufacturers play an important role in helping to carry out the Home Safety Council's mission, by providing consumers with vital products that help reduce the risk of unintentional injury within the home," said Home Safety Council president Meri-K Appy.

Here's a look at half a dozen products you may want to consider for added safety in your home.

• With the Kidde Model 1276E Smoke Alarm, the Colnbrook, United Kingdom company has taken a simple safety device and made it even simpler to operate when it comes to periodically changing the battery. Instead of the neck-wrenching and back-twisting process of prying open or removing a smoke alarm's battery cover to replace the battery -- a big reason many households don't bother -- Kidde's smoke alarm houses the battery in a flip down compartment that easily opens and closes, allowing anyone to slide the old battery out and ease the new one in -- practically blindfolded.

• Another non-U.S. company, Northern International, Inc. of Burnaby, British Columbia offers, in a variety of battery-powered light emitting diode (LED) fixtures, a Flameless Candle that duplicates the glow and random flicker of wax candles, without the danger of an open flame.

• From Maumee, OH, Therma-Tru has come through just in time for hurricane season with a residential entry door system engineered with hurricane force wind resistance that far exceeds building code requirements. Not just high-wind resistance portal slabs, the doors are molded of impact-resistant fiberglass to simulate the look, texture and feel of natural red oak grain. They are crafted to fit any architectural decor and add the value of curb appeal along with a safety upgrade.

• Larson Manufacturing, another door maker, this one from Brookings, SD, offers SecureElegance, a special new line of glass security storm doors equipped with a plastic interlayer sandwiched between two panes of glass. The invisible interlayer gives the door more appeal than security bars, but makes the door more resistant to blows from blunt objects including crow bars, baseball bats and even sledgehammers. Similar to the glass found in cars' front windshields, the glass doors may crack upon severe impact, but remain in the frames to provide continued protection from repeated blows. The glass doors also block 99 percent of ultra violet rays and provide sound and weather insulation properties.

• One of the better known companies among those to be awarded, High Point, NC's Levolor, eliminated the danger associated with even Consumer Product Safety Commission recommended window blind and shade cords by creating size-in-store, non-motorized cordless blinds and shades. A simple push or pull on the bottom bar and a spring motor raises or lowers the window coverings.

• A plus for those living in earthquake country, BrassCraft's Safety+PLUS magnet-based gas shut off valve is a fitting that reacts to a gas line rupture between the fitting and the appliance. The device stops the flow of all but a very small, predetermined and safe amount of gas, called the "bypass flow," designed to be used to reset the device automatically. Only after the line is repaired can the valve be reset to resume protection.

Other products include a device to prevent water scalding, a portable ground fault circuit interrupter, safe cleaning compounds, Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant bath safety products, a garage organization and storage system, and others.

"This year's award winners represent a wide range of home safety products, each showing creativity and commitment to home injury prevention," said Appy.

Published: May 27, 2005

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.