So, there is a switch to select OFF/AUTO/ON, With Flow Auto Switch for my test I keep the switch in AUTO mode, and every time I use any water at my house the motor turns on.
I only need this pump running for showers (I have two bathrooms), about outside faucet/hose may in the future but my main concern is to improve the pressure on my shower to improve the comfort, I have a plan to add a shower panel and I really need more pressure.
I did not have an access panel behind the shower (plan to add it in the future).
I think @sidjohn1 has a smartthings multipurpose sensor on his shower head, or maybe the inlet pipe. It can detect acceleration/vibration from the water flowing when the shower is turned on.
in order to safely control the pump itself, I think we’ll need some more details about the motor, how it’s currently powered and controlled, stuff like that, to suggest an appropriate solution.
Does that pressure booster turn on/off based on it's own inline pressure sensor and what does that fitting/module look like ?
And as an aside, is it not the case that you'd wish this pressure boost in other situations like when you are running the outside faucet/hose?
As boring as this might be... I can see the benefit of putting this on a relay controlled by HE by time windows, or more flexibly, a collection of buttons located where you might want to "turn on the boost".
I run a hot water heater pump (attached to the top of the water heater) when we're going to take a shower at the far end of the house...hate running/wasting water to get it hot down there.
We turn on the pump via double-tap of a light switch outside the shower (so essentially use a button) or tell Google in the Family Room "Hey Google, turn on the hot water" and Google turns on the pump via HE.
The pump is set w/a 7 minute auto-off (using the HE community Auto Off app) so that it only runs long enough to get the water hot.
In your case you're need pressure, not hot water, so you want the pump on for the entire shower, then off when done. Seems like @ogiewon's suggestion is the simplest...turn on pressure booster when motion in the shower, off when motion stops. Once you've tuned the motion automation seems like it would be a nice set-it and forget-it automation.
You could also add a button in the bathroom or just outside the bathroom if you want an option to restrict the automation (for instance if you were just cleaning the shower or similar) - then the automation would not run if that button was turned off.
You could also use the auto-off app to give you a failsafe option to turn off the pump after say 30m (if showers are almost always 30m or less) so in the case you had issues w/the motion automation or something the pump would always turn off after 30m.
Same here. Do you have a Watts recirculating pump? I turn mine on for 5 minutes when a motion sensor senses I am in the shower for the first time in the morning.
It is for this reason that the pumps I've seen are controlled by flow sensors. You don't want the pump to keep running when there's no flow.
If the pump isn't too far from the shower line itself, you might be best just installing a purpose-built flow sensor into the pipe. I.e., something like: Amazon.com
All the Hubitat rules stuff can be fun, but sometimes it just better to keep it simple. I know - Heresy.
I've timed it so that by the time the number of minutes I've set it is reached then the water is hot at the other end of the house...
We don't run the water while the pump is getting the warm water to the other end of the house. My understanding of the Watts system uses a bypass (which we've installed in the sink on that same line) so that the water can flow through the system while it's getting the hot water to the other end of the house. Have I misunderstood something?
I'm doing something similar with a towel warmer in our bathroom. I'm using a motion sensor in the shower as the trigger and two smart plugs (one for a required expression and the other for the action) to turn on the the towel warmer when the shower is running.
I have a gas on demand water heater that requires electricity for the on/off control. I plugged the water heater into a smart plug and use that as a required expression for my rule.
