Hi, apologies for the long note. We were woken up by a false water detection last night; Dome water sensor was true twice. Once for 22 seconds and again 10 minutes later for 17 seconds. There was no water present. My wife was not impressed with the siren going off (via HSM), which took me a while to silence. This happened once before, in the 6 months of so I've had this sensor.
What I'd like to do is put a "delay time" on the water sensor. I setup a Global variable WaterDetected, and was going to delay setting it true for 2 minutes. Unfortunately, HSM doesn't want to trigger from a Global variable. I then thought I would create a virtual water sensor, but again there doesn't appear to be an option for this. I was thinking I could use a virtual contact sensor, but then I would have to have the actions in the intrusion section of HSM, and they seem to be dependent on "away", "night" and "home" status, and I want this action to take place regardless of time of day or if I'm home.
Is there any way around this, or do I just have to stop using HSM and write my own code to trigger the siren and (future) close the water valve? If I go this route, can I duplicate the HSM notifications to our phones and Google Home using the notification app? The notification app doesn't seem like it will trigger from a Global variable, so again, I guess I could fake it with a virtual contact sensor?
Thanks in advance, John
I don't know that you can do this with HSM but you can with Rule Machine. I do something similar with my freezer alarms. If they go above a defined limit (15 degrees currently) it sends a notification to various devices. If the problem still exists 30 minutes later a very loud alarm sounds. I don't use the house alarm - I have a separate siren for just this purpose. I also have a virtual silence switch which will delay any further action for another 90 min.
I realize you just want to stop these annoying reports, however I don't recall other posts with this complaint. Could you just have a bad sensor? Or does the bottom of the sensor have any contamination?
I have a HomeSeer, Fibaro and a number of Aqara moisture sensors, I have yet to experience a false report.
I have got a false positive from this sensor. In my case it apparently is from the salt from the water softener creeping up the sump (or splashing) and onto the edge of the pit where the sensor was. I could see the salt crystals on the floor in this case. I moved it back a couple inches from the pit, and nothing after that.
With my Samsung sensors, they have the upper and lower sensor. When they get dirty, like lint from the washer/dryer falling on them, they false alert. Every so often I have to wipe the one near the washer off.
So it does happen, I just am too lazy to make a rule for this. It might be a nice enhancement for HSM.
In my case my water sensors are immediately shut off the main water supply. I would rather clean them periodically than let an additional 30 seconds of water run if it indeed was a pipe burst.
Thanks for the advice on my water sensor issue. I've moved my sensor up about 1/8" off the floor, and so far no false alarms. I might have a similar salt crystal issue.
Thanks for the advice. I contacted the vendor and am waiting for a response. I had another flurry of false alarms yesterday. I had just hooked up an actuator to shut my water off, so it got a good trial, 16 close then open overnight (I'm haven't re-enabled my siren, thankfully). I've raised the sensor off the concrete by 1/8" (no events in last 24 hours) and put a support query in with the vendor.
