Review: ThirdReality Zigbee Water Leak Sensor with 120 dB siren alarm

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@JustinB recently asked if these sensors work with Hubitat, so I bought one to test because they were on sale for $12.99 (the Amazon price is back up at $19.99 now).

This leak/moisture sensor comes with two AAA batteries and has a built-in siren that is supposed to be loud (120 dB). I think it is supposed to be ZHA 1.2 compliant.

The sensor is easy to pair with Hubitat. It pairs as a "Generic Zigbee Motion Sensor (no temp)".

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After pairing, I changed the driver to "Generic Zigbee Moisture Sensor", and hit configure. Within a minute or two, the status showed up as dry (see below). It also provides an indication of battery life - I don't yet know if that is accurate, but no reason to believe it is not.

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Dipping it in water immediately triggers it, and events show up correctly in Hubitat (see below).'

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The siren beeps in "sets of 3" while it is wet and shuts off immediately when it is dry.

It is not 120 dB; probably more like 80 dB - still loud enough to hear.

Bottom-line, it works with Hubitat and is accurate. There is one major negative - the contacts are recessed by about 2 mm. That's a lot of water to build up before it gets triggered!

Also, as predicted by @SmartHomePrimer, submerging it in water for 5 minutes kills it - which seems like a bad design for a leak sensor. I'm drying it out overnight without the batteries; hopefully, it comes back life.

@mike.maxwell, here is the pairing fingerprint for this sensor. Could it please be added to the "Generic Zigbee Moisture Sensor" driver?

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P.S. For anyone else interested, here is the Amazon link:

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Nice! Takes one for the good of the community. I was just postulating. Didn't expect you to destroy it for proof. :joy:

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Worth it for $12.99. Plus, let's see what spending O/N in rice does.

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Will be waiting patiently for your estimate on dB level while buried in rice...

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That dB estimate was relative to the Aeotec Siren 6, which has a max output of 110 decibels. I can hear that anywhere in my house. I can hear this leak sensor's siren if I'm in the same room, and maybe the next room, but not if I'm 2-3 rooms away. Kind of like my vacuum cleaner.

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I tested this sensor this morning after it had been in rice for 4-5 days. Still dead. I would not recommend its purchase. What's the point of a leak sensor that is killed irretrievably by water? :grinning:

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I got one of these too. Seem to do just fine. The screws appear to be the water sensors, I simply backed-out my screws so they touched the ground. Yeah silly design for sure.. But the price is real nice.

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Just to add my .02 I just went on a leak sensor buying spree after discovering water in my basement (from excess rain, no burst water pipes luckily) that somehow managed to just avoid the 3 other leak sensors down there.

I picked up one of these, alongside 4 Centralite models and my experience mirrors what was reported above. The alarm certainly seems no where near 120dB, I suspect I won’t be able to hear it outside the basement.

I also did this, so that the contacts are basically touching the ground.

I’ll report back if the device decides to fall off my mesh or I experience any other issue.

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So what is the result? Did the sensor fall off? Got 1 in my cart now, debating......

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So far so good. It’s still happily reporting battery status.

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Cool, just got mine and paired it right away.
Rather than leave the screw loose,I made some legs from some wire, so it senses water before it gets too deep

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if height isn't an issue, it might be nice to make even longer legs to avoid the death by water that @aaiyar tested.

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Good idea, however if you have a basement with concrete floors, the moisture content of the floor can set off the sensor. For a fully dry location, not a bad idea. If mine gets wet for preventing a flood, I'll consider it more than paid off

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I just got one of these and it looks pretty good! I added it to Hubitat and it seems to work, but it shows a dud temp sensor too. Any way to make it not report a temp sensor? When I pass it through to HomeBridge it then reports 0 degrees as a second sensor

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This ThirdReality water sensor is now my favorite new device. For the money, it's rock solid. Solid construction, intuitive to work with, and everything worked (well) right out of the box. Yes, you have to select the Zigbee Generic Moisture Sensor driver, but it takes 5 seconds. I experimented with Zooz and others, but they had problems. At $20 box and solid quality and performance, I think these are now the water sensors to beat. I have a couple of Aeotec 7's that I'm going to install in mech areas, but the ThirdReality ones are my under-sink and behind-toilet ones.

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Hey Guys!
I'm trying this water sensor for a month now. It never missed a status update even if it's >30 feets from the closest ZigBee repeater.

I ordered this detection cable from AliExpress. It comes with a connector with two wires. Just plugged in with the two detector screws and bam! I have a sensor with detection cable for less than 40 boxes :smile:

Damn I payed more than 130$ CAD to run that kind of thing under my dishwasher!

https://m.fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005003070413512.html

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