CES 2026: Rescue Retriever Wants to Help Firefighters Save Your Pets.
No pet owner wants to think about what could happen to their four-legged friend in the event of a fire. As a dog owner, I certainly don’t. But fires happen, and pets can’t follow the family fire plan. Rescue Retriever wants to change that. I spoke with the company during the Pepcom event at CES and learned how they’re working to make it easier for firefighters to find your pet in the event of a fire. (Rescue Retriever was founded in March 2024 by two brothers, one of whom is a former firefighter.)
During a fire, pets tend to flee to a place where they feel safe—perhaps under a bed or somewhere secluded in a room. This makes it difficult for firefighters to find animals during an emergency: when every second counts, they don’t have the opportunity to search every corner of a burning house. Unfortunately, as a result, animals sometimes don’t survive. The organization Rescue Retriever wants to change this.
The smoke detector in the Rescue Retriever is installed near your pet’s safe area.
To address this issue, the Rescue Retriever smoke alarm works a little differently. It shouldn’t be placed where your existing smoke alarm is; the idea is to place it where your pet is most likely to run when scared. For example, if you know your pet likes to hide under the bed, you could place the alarm there. Once the device detects smoke during a fire, a bright light will flash inside, emitting through multiple holes located throughout the device. (Even with the bright Pepcom light, the flashing seemed very intense to me.) This way, firefighters can follow the flashing light when trying to locate pets in your home. The kit even includes a sticker you can place on your window to let firefighters know you have a pet to keep an eye on.
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The device operates silently to avoid scaring your pets away from their hiding places. There’s no point in installing a beacon so firefighters can locate your pet if it suddenly runs away due to the alarm going off.
The Rescue Retriever Fire Tag lights up in an emergency.
This year, the company introduced a new product, the Fire Tag, which transfers the strobe light from the main unit to a small tag that can be attached to your pet’s collar. The tag syncs with the main unit via RFID. When the main unit detects smoke and begins flashing, the Fire Tag picks up the signal and continues flashing.
It’s great that the main unit doesn’t make noise that could frighten your dog, but that doesn’t guarantee your dog will go to the smoke alarm location. The smoke alarm could startle your dog again, or your dog might not follow its usual route and hide somewhere far from where you installed the main unit. Having a fire alarm tag on your dog’s collar will give firefighters a better chance of finding your pet, no matter where they are in the house.
The staff at Rescue Retriever told me that these tags have a range of up to a quarter mile, so if your dog runs away from home, their collar could still catch fire. Furthermore, the Fire Tag opens up to accommodate a tracker, such as an AirTag, so if your dog wanders beyond that quarter mile radius, you can still track them if they’re within Bluetooth range of a Find My device.
Rescue Retriever says the Fire Tag is ready for production and, when it becomes available, will be available for purchase either individually ($29.99) or as part of a larger kit with the Rescue Retriever base unit ($89.99). The base unit is currently available for $39.99 , but it is also sold in kits with accessories at various prices.