Water leak alarm recommendation - txt / WiFi notification

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#2685749 2-Apr-2021 12:35

I find device support about the same- would probably give the edge to home assistant. OpenHAB is harder to upgrade and I’d say hard to programme automations. They are more code like (java-ish). Personally I prefer that.

Home assistant I think has a lower barrier to entry and with the fortnightly updates and I think there are more users of it in gz, I think you’d have a better time of it. It also seems to get new devices quicker.

They both run on a pi, and if you’re using docker on an installed rasbian rather than the system on a card solutions then you could try both. But again for ease of starting home assistant on a dedicated pi (hassio I believe it is) is probably the easiest

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#2687088 6-Apr-2021 10:52

My friend from the UK told me about a device that was fitted in his house that shuts the water off if it detects it has been running for quite a while. Basically its for busted pipe detection and protection. He was fairly surprised to discover, when his upstairs bathroom sprung a leak while they were away on holiday for a few weeks so it wrecked a large portion of their house, that they are not common here.

I'd never heard of them before but they sound like a great idea.

I'm sure the limit (not sure if its time or volume) is set fairly high so that normal day to day operation don't trigger them. No doubt there are some people who this wont work for, but in general they sound good. I keep meaning to ask our plumber about getting one installed.

Given the issues with the black water pipes (I cannot remember their name) starting to get to the end of their lives it seems like it would definitely be applicable here. We had a roof leak in our office a few years back and got big blower fans to try and dry the carpet out. The rental guy said black pipe leaks in homes accounts for 70% of their blower business now - yikes!

timmmay

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#2687092 6-Apr-2021 11:01

That could be interesting, limiting damage. Should've done that when we had the water mains replaced, easy enough to retrofit if we decide worthwhile. There's also smart devices that based on say a leak alarm can turn off water.

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#2687108 6-Apr-2021 11:56

timmmay:

That could be interesting, limiting damage.

Ironically, by not having one it wrecked a huge amount of their house which meant most of the gib had to be removed and they were able to replace all the black water pipes. If the leak had been stopped then only a small amount of area would have needed repair and they would have been up for the cost of replacing the black piple in the undamaged part of the house

neb

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#2694047 17-Apr-2021 00:34

msukiwi:
PLEASE NOTE:

YoLink products work only in the USA and Canada

That's not technically true, they work absolutely everywhere, it's just that it may not be legal for them to work in some places :-).

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#2694049 17-Apr-2021 00:39

duckDecoy:
My friend from the UK told me about a device that was fitted in his house that shuts the water off if it detects it has been running for quite a while. Basically its for busted pipe detection and protection. He was fairly surprised to discover, when his upstairs bathroom sprung a leak while they were away on holiday for a few weeks so it wrecked a large portion of their house, that they are not common here.

FloodStop, you can get them from many vendors on Amazon, they're around USD150 and should work fine in NZ. Was tempted to get one for the new laundry at the Casa...

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#2694050 17-Apr-2021 00:43

davidcole: zigbee [...] WiFi.

Speaking of A vs. B, I've noticed that many of the WiFi battery-powered devices go into deep sleep in order to extend battery life, which means you could get a delay of 15-30s between when a water leak is detected and when the device is ready to start notifying you. So going with either always-on powered WiFi or ZigBee could mean the difference between a small and large amount of flooding.

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#2694058 17-Apr-2021 07:05

I got the Yolink / Yosmart products as based on what I can find the Zigbee frequency is allowed to be used in NZ. So far they seem great. They were dispatched by Amazon within 12 hours (way faster than my usual order) and economy DPD shipping got it here in about 5 days.

Registration was very difficult because their server(s) were having problems at the time, it took me about 30 tries to register. Once that was done setup was really simple with their app, just scan the QR code on each device and it adds. The range seems to be very long, I haven't tested the extremes but with the hub is behind a sofa in my office where I have a spare ethernet port, through 3 walls and about 10m the signal strength is still "strong". I'll try putting a sensor in the greenhouse some time to check range, that's about 20 and through more walls / concrete block shed. The app is simple, effective, and powerful. The Yolink alarm I got even on low is quite loud.

The system seems comprehensive. Smoke alarms, water shut-off valves (looks like made for US), mains switches (US), plugs (US), temperature humidity sensors, garage door sensors and openers, all sorts of things. Support tell me they plan to expand into Europe next, hopefully they end up with AU / NZ parts eventually. The sensors talk via a hub, but can also talk directly if set up that way - eg a water sensor can directly stop a water shut-off valve.

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#2694254 17-Apr-2021 16:54

timmmay:
I got the Yolink / Yosmart products as based on what I can find the Zigbee frequency is allowed to be used in NZ.

Went with them for exactly the same reason. The only slightly annoying thing is the cost of the temp/humidity sensors, USD25 each for an XBee with a Bosch sensor element wired to it, I wanted to put several in basement areas of the Casa but at that price I've only got one so far for the workshop.

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#2694258 17-Apr-2021 16:58

The temperature and humidity sensors only update every 4 hours, according to what I read in their docs. That isn't useful for automation.

neb

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#2694265 17-Apr-2021 17:16

timmmay: The temperature and humidity sensors only update every 4 hours, according to what I read in their docs. That isn't useful for automation.

Is that the Yolinks? On the one hand that's kind of annoying, but then given the slow rate at which either value changes indoors it's not a fatal flaw. Still, glad I only got one, maybe they'll introduce a cheaper, faster-responding one at some point.

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#2694295 17-Apr-2021 20:32

According to Amazon answers it updates the display on the sensor every minute but only sends the temp / humidity to the hub every hour. That's fine for things like sensing humidity in a basement, but not really useful for inside say to check if the heating needs to go on or off.

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#2694300 17-Apr-2021 20:53

Ah, OK. Another issue, if you look at some of the docs they specifically refer to non-rechargeable batteries which implies that they won't run off NiMHs, have you had any issues with this?

timmmay

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#2694306 17-Apr-2021 21:18

I only got my set of water sensors a few days ago, they came with fresh alkaline batteries.

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#2694311 17-Apr-2021 21:47

timmmay: I only got my set of water sensors a few days ago, they came with fresh alkaline batteries.

If you've got NiMHs handy could you see if they run off them? Found out the hard way that each of the three non-contact voltage detectors I tried them with actually need the full 1.5V and won't even power up on 1.2V.

You can still use rechargeables there, you just have to use a LiFePO4 + spacer, but you get reduced capacity from that combination.

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