> The in unit smoke detectors can be triggered to warn occupants
This is specifically because the National Construction Code (NCC) requires multiple occupancy buildings to have certain fire safety infrastructure that generally includes a 2 hour fire separation between different occupancy units. This gives a buffer to all other occupants.
> There are also smoke detectors in the hallway.
If a detector is triggered in a common area this has the potential to affect the escape routes of multiple occupants so it triggers an immediate fire alarm.
Australian fire safety rules are some of the best in the world.
The test proposed on the website is NOT currently approved for use in Australia, and is unlikely to be approved for self-test use.
Quote from TGA:
"NOTE: In Australia, the supply of self-tests for most serious infectious diseases, including self-tests for COVID-19, is prohibited under the Therapeutic Goods (Excluded Purposes) Specification 2010. Testing for serious infectious diseases is best conducted in conjunction with a healthcare professional who can provide appropriate advice and treatment if required."
Australia has in some states added nCov-19 to the standard testing panel for all respiratory illnesses, and we haven't seen a spike in detection so far. I'd expect to see an increased detection rate if it was in-fact endemic.
The pause button make sense, force users to focus on the page briefly every now and then to save bandwidth - Netflix does something similar to prevent long running auto-play.
The looping is quite different though, there's no legitimate use for it, and I can't find any controls that would allow you to set a song to auto-repeat. So it's either a bug that they're struggling to fix or an intentional change to make play-lists less functional when you are not watching the platform.