Anybody try the Aqara leak sensor? The cost is similar to the ST sensor. In the driver, it's stated that the Aqara devices sometimes drop offline. I've go the Xiaomi contact sensor on ST for a year without issues, and a week on HE without issues (so far).
Otherwise, I'm tempted to get the slightly more expensive home seer sensor.
I, too, wish I would have bought more of the ST ones when they were available. After having an old pipe leak, I thought it was time to put them where ever water is within my house.
My opinion only: I'd be very leery of any water leak sensor that has a known issue w/staying online...there are enough potential problems w/a consumer system like HE w/out adding in a device w/a known issue.
For me the extra cost would be worth it to be as sure as possible that my leak detector was solid.
These are $8...I wonder if some mad genius here could re-purpose these w/ an arduino board and external battery power.
$16 each, 2 shipped for $32. I bought two of them. Joined easily, seem to work. I'm using "generic zigbee moisture sensor", and they seem to properly report "wet" and "dry" and battery state.
They use Cr2032 batteries, and unlike the Samsungs only have sensor pads on one face.
Size wise they are volumetrically a bit smaller than the samsungs, but of broadly similar size.
@scottgu3, do these report anything else like temp / battery status. And at what frequency? So this way we can have an eye if it's still alive and monitor reliability that it won't drop off the mesh.
Coming from IT, I'd say it would be good to setup an alert to report when the device is offline. I'm not seeing a good way to see if it's online or offline just yet. Perhaps if the device reports battery and temperature conditions at a somewhat regular schedule, one could check if those updates are still coming in and alert when a projected update was missed.
Aeotec has been announced as the new partner for ST rebranded hubs and hardware in the US. Their products should be available by Q2 2021. Not going to help those who need leak sensors now.
Plus those are likely to be Z-Wave (Aeotec seems very Z-Wave centric). That would worry me, as Z-Wave has been less reliable than Zigbee over the time I've been w/HE.
Hope a pipe won't burst before then Also, will they be anything like the Samsung ones, I love the fact that it has probes on the top and bottom. This setup helps detect leaks a lot faster, wish they have pics in the near future to know if we wait or just find an alternative!
Zigbee water leak sensor for SmartThings — Aeotec
When you click buy it has you subscribe to get information on where to obtain. The links that it gave me to purchase Aeotec products currently only has their Z-wave products.
With the stock Generic Zigbee Moisture Sensor, it only (seems) to report Moisture State and Battery. I haven't determined the battery reporting period yet, but it seems to be 12 hours +/- 1 hr or so.
I don't know if what data it exposes, but the manual doesn't talk about anything but moisture. Of course, the manual says it's has a WiFi Transmisson Frequency of 2.4 GHz, with a wireless protocol of Zigbee, so I don't put too much stock in the manual.
Somebody who writes drivers for fun...might be able to get more out of it.
I need to spend some time with Device Watchdog. I can reliably get it to do battery reports, but I've never managed to configure it to do much else...lol
Sounds good to at least no if it disappears from the network, did you try poling it to see if it sleeps?
Zigbee is on 2.4 Ghz, maybe the WIFI part is just a typo or miss-knowledge of the person writing the manual. But if you look on AliExpress, a lot of the Zigbee devices state it that way. So probably a lot of copy paste going on.
I seem to recall them being around $20 or so. I think the motion sensor was more, but the Buttons and Leak sensors were cheaper. My memory is notoriouosly faulty though...ask my wife! LOL
