I am thinking of getting Tuya water sensors ( Tuya ZigBee Smart Home Water Sensor Leak Detector Flood Water Leakage Alarm Works With Tuya Zigbee Hub Smart Life APP Remote|Sensor & Detector| - AliExpress)
Anybody knows if these are Zigbee 3.0? Will these work well on Hubitat? I am in Canada and tyring to find some zigbee 3.0 water sensors which will not break the bank.
Not sure. But these are inexpensive and work with Hubitat:
Just don’t submerge them completely in water.
There are Tuya devices that are Zigbee 3.0. The ones I have seen clearly state that they are Zigbee 3.0 certified. Although the device you mention on Aliexpress says it uses Zigbee, there is not clear certification information stated. I would be hesitant to assume they are 3.0 certified without specific language to that effect. Also remember that if it does not work, you are probably stuck since returning product to China is difficult.
Purchasing water sensors based on price may not be wise. I understand your incentive to save money. However, if you do have a significant water leak and the leak is not detected and reported immediately, repairing the damage may be expensive. Thus, you might want to think twice about trusting your property to the least expensive Chinese technology. In this case, reliability is more important than cost.
Thank you. I completely agree to your point about reliability. My options, unfortunately are a bit limited due to being in Canada. Let me search again.
This one from Amazon seems to work well. I've only had it a few days so I can't speak to battery life.....
Available on AliExpress also....
I have a couple of these on the way to try out as well.
I’ve been very happy with the Aquara water sensors:
Do you know if these are zigbee 3 ?
I’m almost certain they are not Zigbee 3.
They do however have screw terminals that allow the connection of a lead.
They can be a pain to pair, but once paired to a strong mesh, they are good for a while.
Xiaomi/Aqara devices are not standard Zigbee. However, they will work with Hubitat as long as you have repeaters in your network that are compatible with Aqara.
I purchased a couple of Aqara sensors, but could not get them to work because I had some older HA1.2 Smartthings and Centralite smart plugs in my setup. I removed those devices and added some eWelink Zigbee 3.0 based smart plugs and the the Aqara devices now work fine. However, I lost the power monitoring capability of the older smart plugs. I have not been able to find a suitable Zigbee smart plug with power monitoring that will work with Aqara sensors.
I have found Ecolink Z-wave Plus water leak sensors to be reliable. I use one as a high water level shutoff sensor for my RO water system. If the sensor fails, the water could overflow the tank. However, the list price is $50 CAD, so I only use a couple of them for my more critical applications. I also have one on my basement sump to indicate if my sump pump fails.
I use Centralite water leak sensors (Zigbee 1.2) under sinks, toilets, etc. However, they are currently out of stock on Amazon.ca.
I believe there’s a newer generation of devices that are zigbee 3.0 compliant. I don’t know much about their availability outside of China, model #s etc. But I agree with the advice in your initial reply:
And even then, just because a seller on a site like Aliexpress says it’s zigbee 3.0, since there’s essentially no mechanism to hold them accountable if they were mistaken or even flat out lying, “buyer beware” still applies.
That's good point on Aliexpress claims. I am fine to buy from canada/US sites, or Alibaba. The point in my mind is that I am starting up to buy my first water sensors, I thought I'll try to find Zigbee 3.0 compliant devices where possible, just so that I have newer standards in place.
There are many ZHA 1.2 (the zigbee profile that preceded zigbee 3.0 for most home automation stuff) water sensors that do exactly what they should do, reliably report wet or dry. So I wouldn’t get too caught up on the newer profile if you find a good source for a reliable sensor online.
So a genuine zigbee 3.0 coordinator is automatically compatible with ZHA 1.2 profile devices, and genuine zigbee 3.0 profile devices should automatically step down to ZHA 1.2 when paired to a ZHA 1.2 coordinator like Hubitat.
Agreed. The Third Reality water sensors I linked to above are guaranteed to work with Hubitat, and also work with a zigbee 3.0 coordinator - I have confirmed they work with zigbee2mqtt using a CC2652P2 stick that is flashed with zigbee 3.0 coordinator firmware.
And there's a whole thread about their function with Hubitat:
Like the Aqara sensors, they have external screw terminals, permitting them to be adapted for other purposes.
Nice, I actually have been looking for this in a zigbee device. I have a few z-wave contact sensors with screw terminals but don’t particularly need the hassle of using z-wave battery powered devices without many z-wave repeating devices (though I have a few).
Download the Hubitat app
