Best way to detect shower in use?

Hardware
21

Vibration sensor FTW! I stuck a zigbee vibration sensor to the top of my rainfall shower head, and it triggers the moment the water comes on. Did some prancing around in the shower area and jumping up and down and it didn’t trigger any false positives, so I’m pretty sold on this for now!

1 Like
22

interesting approach. too bad there does not seem to be any water resistant vibration sensors on the market :frowning:

23

I’m using zigbee water leak sensor. I’m just using it to turn on all the lights in bathroom if brightness level is below threshold and shower is in use.
It serves me well.

24

@triblondon This sounds like a great idea. I was wondering what brand/model you are using and if you have had any issues with moisture?

25

I tried a variety of zigbee sensors, but they were all roughly equivalent. I wasn’t concerned about the moisture because I have really large “rainfall” shower heads and the top of them doesn’t get wet.

I would say the sensor I’d buy again is the Aqara, mostly just because it’s very small.

1 Like
26

Thanks @triblondon I’ll give it a try

27

I like the idea of using the vibration sensor, but for me it doesn’t work. I’m using the Aqara, which even with the highest sensitivity doesn’t register turning on the (rainfall) shower. I’ll have to look for another solution.

Btw, I actually don’t like the Aqara at all: the hardwired timeout of 60 seconds make it impossible to tune. It also has no retrigger, therefore it turns off always, even with the shower still on (and if it were to detect that) and will not turn on again for 60 seconds.

28

For my bathroom I have a smart plug on the exhaust fan. When the light is turned on the esp code waits a few minutes and then runs the fan for 15 minutes. This operates independently of HA. I also have a smart plug on the water heater and if the bathroom light is on and hot water being produced it turns the fan on.

I have an old plaster ceiling with original vent slots which I don’t want to alter. I have a ducted fan behind this which draws a bit of power and a bit on the noisy side. Not foolproof but better than always running the fan with the light on.

29

I just have a fibaro zwave motion sensor (the eye ball thinggy) in the shower. When someone enter the shower the fan turn on, extra light and the ceiling radio turn up the volume to overcome the fan noise.