Detect water flow in pipe

I just ordered one to try out, 30-day return policy and maybe March delivery.

Interesting fact, Droplet by Hydrific is part of LIXIL, a Japanese conglomerate that also owns the American Standard and GROHE brands (among others). Doesn’t mean anything except there are corporate pockets to help

And this from the Kickstarter promo is promising, I’ll reach out to their link and see what they have to say.

I just filled out the survey. Others can cast their vote for Home Assistant here
https://m9b4fwre7yu.typeform.com/to/BV63nDIG

Just to add to the conversation… I reached out to droplet via email and got this response:

Thanks for your interest in Droplet!

Currently, Droplet does not natively integrate with smart home hubs like Hubitat, Home Assistant, or SmartThings. However, we understand how valuable these integrations are for many of our users, and it’s something we’re actively considering as we plan future updates to the product.

As of now, we don’t provide APIs or tools for integration, but expanding our compatibility is on our radar, and we’re always open to feedback. If you’re interested in advocating for specific features, we encourage you to share your thoughts on our Kickstarter page or send us additional feedback directly!

Thanks again for reaching out—please let us know if you have any other questions.

Best regards,

Hydrific Support

PS: It’s an active discussion to allow for local, but for our computation, that’s all done on the cloud.

Maybe this is also worth a look:

… they explicitly mention HA compatibility…

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Hello everyone,

I’m thrilled to share that I’ve finally managed to complete my project!

Instead of using an ultrasonic sensor, I’ve opted for the YF-B10 sensor.

Here’s the post and GitHub repository for the project:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Esphome/s/4WSLHYU8ny

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glad it is working for you. That sensor is known to be not very good (accuracy is specified as 5% and typically only over a flow rate that is well above a slow leak).

It will likely tell you if you have a significant leak and/or excess flow for an extended period.

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I received my Hydrific Droplet and it does everything it is supposed to do in my limited testing. The latest email update contains an mention of HA support so I hope it is sooner rather than later:

What exactly is it supposed to do?

I did not find any clear definition of that. What kinds of leaks can it detect?

Can it tell that you have a 1 drop per hour leak because of a faulty tap?

What about a 1 drop per second?

How about a 1 liter/hour?

What did you test and how did you verify the accuracy?

Specs from the Droplet web site are:

I haven’t tested anything other than to verify it detects and log water usage, it is in a seasonal home that isn’t open yet.

That sounded good, until I did the math.

a drop is about 0.05 ml which

it can detect 0.1 liter/min ==> 100ml/min
or 1.66 ml/sec or ~33 drops/sec. That is a stream. It might be better than the low flow my meter (PD standard water meter) is capable of, but it won’t show you a slow drip (2 drops/sec).

I will stick with what I have.

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From the Droplet product support page (June 2025):
Our goal is to support:

*** Local API access via MQTT**

*** Support for Home Assistant**

*** Other smart home integrations via Matter in the future**

:hammer_and_wrench: API & Home Assistant support are features that are currently in development, with plans to roll out in 2025.

Just got my Droplet installed - and it’s providing flow rate via MQTT. Seems good so far.

I’d really like a to have consumption though - so I can integrate it to the ‘Water’ side of the Energy dashboard. Hopefully, they add that soon.

Is there a way to change the device class or create a template sensor that pulls the state and has the device class of water?

use the docs:

All sensors inherit the base sensor configuration (and you can change it that way).