Smart Water Valve - Zigbee preferred, WiFi if necessary

I’m looking to control a water valve to an outside series of spigots. The valve is in the basement, and WiFi isn’t very good down there, but Zigbee is.

I could sweat in a new valve, or use one of those motorized actuators which just moves the handle on the existing ball valve.

Looking for one which integrates well with native HA (no MQTT, etc.)

Does such a thing exist? Any recommendations for a good one? Thank you!!

I use a Z-wave valve bulldog, they do have a wifi version.
I prefer this type since it is a valve operator and can be installed without any plumbing at all.
I have had mine in use for over a year without issue.
I use mine as a control for a backup water source.

1 Like

Thanks! I’ll look into the bulldog. I was hoping to go with Zigbee, since I’ve got nothing else running Z-wave at this time. But if no-one comes through with a good Zigbee solution, I may try it out. My HUSBZB stick does both Zigbee and Z-wave, and it’s locate not too far from the valve I want to control, so I hope it’ll be OK. And I’d learn something.

I have two z-wave shutoff valves. They are both Domes similar to the bulldog. The irrigation shutoff operates 12 times per week and continues to hold up after 2 years. The main water shutoff has survived for 5 years. Homeseer also has a z-wave shutoff valve. I had one shutoff die from stripped die-cast gears. Don’t remember the brand.

Tuya has one for zigbee. The mechanicals look the same as Dome.

Here is a youtube video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3aZyDfLsbg

1 Like

I have not installed it yet, but I have a working ball valve responding
to my Aqara humidity sensors.
I use a US Solid motorized steel ball valve, controlled by a
MHCozy Zigbee relay. It is a low cost solution but it works very well.
I can provide more details if anybody is interested

Curious what ball valve? Are you doing any leak detection integration with it?

I used the US Solid JFMSV00002 Motorized ball valve with 3 cable control.

Valve Control 1

It works very well but I never installed it due to some piping limitations in the house. It is integrated with 4 Aqara humidity detectors over Zigbee and the valve control works also with Zigbee.

My new plan is to install a regular ball valve and I am buying an actuator to open and close the valve.
My original setup works very well but I am moving away due to some other practical limitations.

OP here. In the end I found a cheap motorized valve actuator on Ali Express which used Zigbee. It’s been working great. My only concern would be it doesn’t have a lot of torque, and I wonder if it would work on an old, corroded valve where the handle is hard to turn.

@CaptTom Do you have a link to the valve actuator you used? I am in the exact same boat that you were.

Also How has it been working these past few months?

I don’t have a link to the one I bought, but this one looks very similar:

I installed it in late summer of 2021, and it’s been working great. I use it all the time (except in winter.)

1 Like

curious if anyone ended up getting the wifi version of the bulldog valve and had successful with integrating to home assistant?

Hi Captom,

do you use zha or z2m to connecnt the valve?

thanks

ZHA. The valve is a pretty simple device, and it worked out of the box.