Water Leak Sensor Intergration

Hardware
1

Hello first time poster. Just bought home assistant and working on building my smart home. Id like to buy some water leak sensors for my basement in case my sump pump ever stops working. Does anyone have any advice on what kind of water leak sensors would be the easiest to use with home assistant? Thanks!

2

Welcome!

I installed a wifi based Shelly Flood a couple months ago and have to admit I was skeptical of wifi for something like this. That said two days ago, a receive an automation alert that I had setup to notify me via Pushover in Home Assistant from the Shelly Flood (and keep notifying me on iOS, regardless of whether I had do not disturb on or NOT until I acknowledged ) So take it as an n=1 but it worked and allowed me to deal with a leaking water heater clogged pressure value before it was a major issue! I would say give the Shelly Flood a look.

1 Like
3

Thank you for the suggestion! I haven’t heard of shelly and will look into them!

4

I can also recommend the Xiaomi Aqara Water Leak Sensors. They require a ZigBee coordinator such as ConBee II.
I was also skeptical, but they already saved my ass once when somobe forgot turning off the water for the bathtub.

1 Like
5

Thank you for the suggestion! I will look into these as well. Do I need to buy the Aqara hub or can I get away with using a Conbee II USB stick? Has anyone gotten the Yolink ones to work? Looks like they are cheap and you can get 5 of them plus the hub for $70.

6

I use them with a ConBee II :slight_smile: Maybe half of my ZigBee devices are Xiaomi, but I never bought and will never buy a phone home to China Aqara hub.

3 Likes
7

Awesome! Thanks!

8

I have a couple of the Aqara water leak detectors and agree with others that these work well.

The first ones I bought were the cheap RF ones at around ÂŁ7-8 or <$10, I have 5 of these. They would be a good option if you already have an RF bridge like the Sonoff, the batteries do last a long time but unfortunately they do not report battery status so you have to remember to change them every year or so.

I also have another RF leak detector which we dangle in the bath when it is filling as it takes ages to fill (and the flow from the taps can outpace the overflow):

9

I’m using Dome Home Automation Leak Sensor Wireless Z-Wave Plus with Remote Probe, Water Resistant, White (DMWS1). I use a GoControl CECOMINOD016164 HUSBZB-1 USB Hub to communicate with my Zig-Bee and Zwave devices.

When it comes to home automation, I avoid anything cloud based, been burnt too many times with the cloud being down at the worst time!

I’m currently using the leak detector with my washer and dishwasher. Saved me when my washer did overflow and I was able to get to it before a ton of water leaked out!

10

I recently (last year?) got a few of the Ecolink Z-Wave leak/freeze sensors and so far, they’ve worked well. Supposedly, they are supposed to go 5 years on a single battery (CR123A). I also have 5 of the SmartThings water leak sensors, but those are discontinued and hard to find lately.

https://www.amazon.com/Ecolink-Zwave-Freeze-Sensor-FLF-ZWAVE5-ECO/dp/B0716YVPLG/

11

I used the Android Aqara app to initially add the Aqara Water Leak Detector.

I then successfully added the Aqara Water Leak Detector to my homeassistant.

However when water passes under the sensor it only shows “wet” in the Aqara app and does NOT
Change from dry to leak in the Overview homeassistant

Any ideas

Thanks

Chas

12

Sorry, I don’t use the Aqara hub to integrate these sensors, I use a ConBee ZigBee stick.

13

Hey thanks for the quick reply…

I struggled for 2 weeks trying to get the Con Bee II to work with my Virtual Box on Windows setup but gave up!

Chas

14

Search the forum, I remember othwrs haveing issues with USB passthrough and Virtualbox.

I for one would not run Home Assistant as a Virtual Machine in Windows in the first place…

2 Likes
15

OK

Will do

17

Hi, Appreciate this is an old thread but I’d be grateful if you could share how you setup HA/Pushover to repeat notifications until acknowledged?

Thanks

18

This is what I have running. Just tested, still working. However, I am rather behind on HA versions, I am running 2021.12.

Good hunting!

----- automations.yaml
- alias: Garage flood sensor 01
  trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: sensor.garage_water_leak_01_status
    to: 'true'
  action:
    service: notify.pushover
    data:
      message: Garage flood sensor 01 water detected
      data:
        priority: 2
        sound: updown
        retry: 240
        expire: 3600

----- configuration.yaml
notify:
  - name: pushover
    platform: pushover
    api_key: !secret pushover_api_key
    user_key: !secret pushover_user_key

-----
1 Like
19

Thanks David

20

Hi there,
I have used an Aqara water leak detector for nearly 3 years now, and never had any issues. I even tested it every 1-2 months to make sure it was still working fine.
Recently, the sensor has been detecting a lot of false leaks under my sink. I thought the battery was dead, so I changed it but after a few days, the same problem arose again. I then removed it from Home Assistant and paired it again. Same problem after another couple of days.
I live in an area where humidity is quite high at the moment (not unusual to have >70%RH), but it’s not enough to condensate and create a thin layer of water to short the two electrodes.
Has anyone seen this issue ? Do think my sensor is dead ?
Thank you :slight_smile: !