Got my four(4) pack of the Linkind leak sensors, and my experience was the same as @erktrek. They act and feel really similar to the ThirdReality ones.
Both:
use AAA instead of watch batteries, feel solid in design, have audible beep, need the generic moisture sensor, etc. Both were very easy to pair and have worked flawlessly in testing since, across distances of 15 feet out to about 100 ft from the controller (going across 3 rooms).
Hard to say which I like more right now.
Pros of Linkind:
Cheaper, for now, but not by much
Pros of ThirdReality:
Contacts are more out at the edges, so I feel like they will trip more than the Linkind contacts which are under the belly. My testing showed that as well - water had to build up a bit around the Linkind for it to go off, but ThirdReality went off as soon as water got close.
I'm grasping for differences though. Both are great for the money and I highly recommend.
TL/DR: If these fall off the mesh, they might stop regularly reporting battery until you reset/pair them, remove them, and then re-pair them from scratch.
I recently did a Hub Protect migrate from one C-7 to another. That kept my Z-wave network intact (except for one hiccup), but it meant I needed to reconnect my 120 Zigbee devices, basically by resetting each in turn while doing a Zigbee pairing. That mostly went smoothly except for two classes of devices: a huge issue with the Sylvania/LEDVANCE strips and these Linkind water sensors.
Although the issue with the Linkind water sensor was minor. A reset (holding the button on the back for 5 seconds) let them immediately pair with the new hub. However, they no longer reported battery at all, so they started going off in my Device Activity Check daily report. They still worked; making them wet (touching metal to the contacts) caused them to alarm, both locally and to raise it to Hubitat. They just weren't making regular battery reports anymore.
I specifically removed them from the hub and then paired them again from scratch (without the device pre-existing). That let the battery updates start up again. It just meant I needed to re-add the device to all the apps they were in before I removed them.
This issue is minor and easily corrected, and not likely to occur to many people. I still think these are a bargain.
Interesting...and thanks for the info. As a part of the TS on this, did you hit Configure/Refresh on the Device page for the leak sensors, or try swapping drivers (change to another driver and then change back to the "real" driver and hit configure)? Just curious.
Initially, no. After they showed up as inactive 24 hours later, I reset 2 of them again and at that point I did hit Configure & Refresh after re-pairing them. 24 hours later when they still didn't have battery reports and were marked inactive was when I did a remove and then re-paired them. I never tried swapping drivers.
(It was a long week getting everything back to 100% working after the hub swap. Amongst the issues, I had 3 of my 4 Ikea Tradfri plugs also drop off, which in turn made one of my Aqara/Mijia sensors drop off. I'm happy to say that at this point everything is stable again.)
@jlv@danabw I've been tinkering with these linkind sensors using @coreystup's driver (https://github.com/csstup/Hubitat-CSS/blob/main/devicetypes/csstup/linkind-leak-sensor.src/linkind-leak-sensor.groovy) as a starting point, and I ran into an interesting behavior quirk: it looks like these sensors completely ignore reporting configuration commands after they are paired with the hub. I was trying to make battery percentage (attribute 0x21) and battery voltage (attribute 0x20) reporting intervals configurable in device preferences, which is a fairly straightforward change, but it did not work. Right now these intervals can still be configured by editing the driver code and changing the hard-coded value of 3600 (1 hour) in 4 places, and deleting and pairing the sensor back again. The sensor reports its state (wet/dry) every 2 hours and I could not find a way to change that interval.
Weirdly enough, the sensor also ignores these commands during re-connect process, so the only reliable way to actually make them accept configuration changes is to delete/pair, which is, I guess, the issue @jlv was having?
I might be doing something wrong code-wise, but at least that's what it looks like for now.
I have 8 of these sensors and so far they've been rock solid besides these quirks. It's been less than a month though.
Hope this is useful!
I recently set up a 4-pack of the Linkind zigbee water sensors, and discovered a few key pairing notes:
Ensure it is auto-detected as type "Generic Zigbee Moisture Sensor (no temp)". If it pairs as anything else, it's likely not going to work, in my testing. A few times they came up as a generic device.
Ensure that after pairing that it reported a battery state/capability. On your device details, under Current States, if you only see "water : dry", and don't see "battery" as well, the sensor may not be actually communicating properly.
Twice a device paired as the correct type, did NOT report a battery value/capability, and when testing the alerting by touching two sensor contacts with my fingers, nothing was logged in Hubitat. If that occurs, delete the device out of Hubitat, and start the zigbee pairing over again with holding the Linkind center black button for 5 seconds.
Mine are reporting what appears to be doubled battery values ("200" percent for 3 of them, and "196" percent for the 4th. Time will tell if continuous battery levels update or not, and what their values mean...
I am not using a custom driver; just using whatever is bundled in HE 2.3.2.139
Don't forget to click through your Hubitat Safety Monitor to refresh your water sensor device list, and test each one by touching two contacts to ensure it is communicating and triggers a HSM alert.
Good advice! My batteries are all reporting 100% even though I installed them on Jan 19. so not sure what is going on there. I am using a C5 hub for all my Zigbee devices.
My 3 that reported 200% battery initially later adjusted to 100% on all subsequent battery reports (refreshing about every 16 hours). The 196% was not reporting battery status beyond the first check-in (but was still functional for alerting). I deleted and repaired it, and now it is working like all the others. 200% initially, 100% every 16 hours thereafter. @erktrek like you, I wonder if 100% really is the battery level...but at least it's one regular data point to keep my Device Activity Check happy.
I'm still monitoring. Trying to figure out the best way to monitor batteries without checking the levels - I'm thinking at looking at a devices average reporting frequency - if out of bounds sending an alert. Something like that.
I just bought (from alieexpress) MOES brand water sensors.
I strongly urge all of you NOT to purchase this kind.
Of the 12 that I purchased 11 are defective (i.e. will not alert on water).
Great price, horrible quality.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
P.S. I have used Blitzwolf, Tuya, and ThirdReality sensors without any issues.
