CES 2026: Rescue Retriever Wants to Help Firefighters Find Your Pets in a Fire

No pet owner wants to think about what might happen in the event of a fire. As a dog owner, I know I don't. But fires do happen, and pets can't follow a fire plan. Rescue Retriever wants to change that: I spoke with the company during CES' Pepcom event, and learned how they're 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, started by two brothers—one of whom is a former firefighter. The company told me that 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: They don't have the ability to search every corner of a burning home, and, unfortunately, pets sometimes don't make it out.

Rescue Retriever's smoke detector

Rescue Retriever's smoke detector aims to solve that problem. This detector 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 they are 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 places throughout the device. (Even in 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 as well, 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.

Rescue Retriever Fire Tag

Credit: Lifehacker

But Rescue Retriever wasn't at Pepcom just to show off a device they launched two years ago. New to this year is the Fire Tag, which brings the strobe light from the main unit to a small tag you can place on your dog'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 will follow suit.

It's great that the main unit doesn't make a noise to scare your dog, but maybe they run off anyway. 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 dog, wherever they may be in the home.

Rescue Retriever also tells me these tags have a range of up to a quarter mile. If your dog goes running off away from your house, their collars might still light up. To that point, the Fire Tag opens up, allowing you to place a tracker like an AirTag inside. Even if your dog runs out of that quarter mile range, you could 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 also comes with its own bundles and accessories for varying prices.

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