I'm finding the web portal (similar to mobile app) provides a lot of details if you want to peruse...this w/out any subscription:
Thanks @danabw for taking the time to get all the screen shots! It looks like the negative reviewer on Amazon was jumping to conclusions as to the lack of information (or the granularity of it) that was available without a subscription. I guess the only thing now is that like any cloud based platform that maintains a free database for its users, they can always pull a Wink and change the rules to hold you hostage lol! For those of you a little more “senior”, like Roseanne Roseannadanna (OG SNL from the 70’s) used to say “There’s always somethin’” or “Never mind!”.
I would love to have an outdoor outlet in the utility box so I could keep the Flume on an AC to DC transformer and not worry about battery changes. However, since that is not an option for me, rigging up an external battery pack with greater capacity seems to be the option of choice. Unfortunately, since my box is just on the outside of my walled property (in the easement net to the curb), anyone can lift the cover and take any equipment that is enclosed but not firmly attached to the meter (not that they would hopefully nor even think about it).
Also, has anyone had any local utility make a fuss over “attaching” non-city equipment to their meters?
@danabw Did you say you just got Flume2? Sounds like Amazon sent you an older Flume2 battery version if it has the standard 4 AA pack .. I wish I opened mine, because if it is the 4 battery type, I might try to extend it out for easier swap without mucking with the meter ..
I was expecting my Flume 2 to have the lithium battery pack, and when I saw that it had 4 AA's, I thought I had the wrong model. I confirmed it was the Flume 2 by looking at the print on the bottom, it says Flume2 on it. Also, the original Flume looks much different. I'm glad mine has the AA's.
Same here. I won't be buying another replacement pack at $20+shipping. I just wish I had noticed the first time.
Yeah, I have the Flume 2, the newer one that looks like this:
This is what my battery pack looks like:
I do not have this one:
Not sure I get what you're saying here. Can you elaborate a little? Does having the older (black) style battery pack make modding this for external power easier? My goal would to be able to avoid having to burn batteries to run it. 
Yeah, Im not good with voltage math, the Lithium Pack says 3.3v, whereas if I had a 4AA in a case, I think I could just extend wires to another battery case. Unfortunately in my situation, I have power no where near it. But I dont want to dismantle the unit to replace batteries.
So, if I could run an extension outside the case that could be easily swapped, that would be ideal. If water gets where my meter is, I have bigger worries than some wet batteries
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Consider 4 "D" batteries (if you can find them).
Putting (I assume you mean alkaline) batteries in parallel is not a good idea. Any difference in voltage will tend to try and "charge" the weak one. While its been done, for long life I'd stay with 4 batteries in series.
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Heh, wish I could say the same. Mine ends up submerged for a while every time it rains. To their credit, it seems to hold up and is pretty well waterproof.
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I just had the battery pack die after 8 months. I have the Flume 2 and it had the black battery pack wrapped with the black plastic label. The black one is easy to replace the batteries in. I'm not sure about the grey pack.
Flume is sending me a replacement battery pack under warranty. since the grey one is the newer one that's probably what I'll get.
Interesting - I didn't know the battery would be under warranty after 8 months. What is the warranteed life supposed to be?
Well, Flume seems to have good CS at least - that's always a good sign! I ordered one of the fancy gray battery packs, but I won't get it till later this week... I'll use either it or my old-school black-tape version to wire up my battery conversion kit.
I'll post results back here and the main Flume thread as soon as I have them!
I believe one year. Before I attempted to replace the batteries in my original pack I went ahead and ordered a 2nd one. Thought about cancelling the order but figured I'll keep it and make it just a tad quicker to swap out the next one.
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Update on my quest to get Flume on mains power...
First, I ordered one of those new grey battery packs out of curiosity -- it was a waste of $20...
You'd have to literally break it open to see what's inside. There are two "pins" holding the top and bottom half together, but they are tiny and appear to be rivets. I tried mashing all of my various micro screwdriver tools (various phillps and star-nut types), but nothing would grip. I'm left to conclude those grey boxes ain't gonna open.
But fortunately my Flume 2 came with one of the older black/open-construction battery packs that just had 4 lithium AA batts in it -- easy to work with!
Knowing it was 4 AAs, I originally ordered a 4-AA conversion kit - that was another mistake! In actuality, it needs this 2-AA conversion kit. The diference is the voltage - the 4-AA kicks out ~6 V, and the 2-AA kicks out ~3v. The Flume wants ~3 volts (they new grey battery pack even says "3V" on it).
The 2-AA conversion kit seems to work great -- I just loaded the powered battery and its dummy battery in the lower 2 slots of the black battery pack -- I left the other two slots empty.
I tested my new "battery package", and it was putting out ~3.4v, which matched the output of the original config w/ 4 lithium AA,
Buttoned it all up and put everything back in place, and it's working great so far!
Kicker is you need an outlet near your flume - I installed an outlet near my meter a while ago in anticipation of putting a z-wave shutoff valve in on my main line, so I was lucky there.
ETA - my meter is inside my house
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I literally just went through the exact same thing yesterday. I also ordered the new battery pack and they sent me one under warranty. My Flume also came with the black holder and the batteries were wrapped with a black plastic. I likewise agree the grey battery pack is a waste of money.
I was able to open the battery pack. I ordered this kit which contains Torx drivers, T1 through T10. The T6 is the size that fits the screws. What I found inside was 4 batteries in a plastic tray and the battery contacts contained allot of soldered connections between the positive and negative terminals. Nothing that could be easily hacked unlike the black holder which the batteries can at least easily be replaced.
The battery pack is wired in Parallel which keeps the voltage at the 3 volt level, the equivalent of 2 AA batteries but doubles the amp hour capacity.
Another interesting fact is that I replaced the black battery pack with 4 new Energizer alkaline batteries until the replacements arrived. These batteries were installed on Feb 8th and yesterday I started receiving low battery warnings. I'm guessing the difference was in alkaline vs lithium.
I'm hoping with now having 2 battery packs installed I will get a year of service, if not I guess I'll be buying that AA conversion kit and running AC to my meter pit.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0921ZQQTR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Good stuff - thanks for all of that additional info - that's very helpful in completing the picture here!
If anything starts going sideways with my conversion kit or if Flume starts to have any fits with it for some reason, I'll post up back here.
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I predict you'll be just fine. Number 1, I don't see how Flume can argue what you did can in any way damage the meter and number 2, unless they're monitoring how often the users are replacing the batteries I can't imagine there's enough profit at $19.00 to warrant monitoring something like this.
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I'm not sure what the conversion kit consists of but you can purchase 3V AC adapters. Perhaps you can connect the adapter to the old gutted battery pack.
This was not the only one, it was the 1st I found that was ul listed.
This would work also but the conversion kit used by @hydro311 would be a better choice because it will directly fit into the existing battery pack.
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I have the Sinope flow sensor and the zigbee version of the valve on primary and secondary homes. They work fine. Their documentation is lacking (imo) wrt the different configurations available and requirements. That aside, in my understanding, the flow sensor will only work within the Sinope device environment and these devices cannot simultaneosly connect to multiple control hubs. This means if you want the flow/shutoff logic then you must use the Sinope control devices outside of HE. A leak is defined as a finite value (no algorithm logic) of something like 2 liters/min for 30 min. You can extend the 30 min value in settings to whatever you like.
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