Abstract: Miniaturized smoke detectors, which operate on a light obscuration principle and may be either AC or battery operated, are both optically and electrically balanced whereby an unbalance resulting from the presence of smoke will trigger an alarm. The smoke detectors are characterized by a smoke chamber in which a light emitting diode and a pair of light detectors are installed in a manner which precludes relative movement therebetween. A splitter plate is also installed in the smoke chamber whereby both detectors are caused to see the same light flux density and one of the detectors, positioned in close physical proximity to the light source, acts as a reference signal source.