I’m looking for a smart valve that works with Hubitat and leak sensors, as well as monitors water usage and will trigger closure on anomalies related to flow and pressure, so it can will water leaks where sensors can’t such as a pipe leak. I’ve found valves that do one of the other, but haven’t been able to find on that does both. Has anyone else found something for this?
Bump.
Interesting topic.
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Sinopé Zigbee valve + flow sensor combo does all that except pressure anomalies. Not cheap but extremely well built. Has battery backup too. Can be bought as a system together with leak detectors.
The Hubitat Safety Monitor app can take care of closing the valve if any specified water leak connected to the hub triggers.
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I'm pretty happy with the zooz titan...
https://www.getzooz.com/zooz-zac36-titan-water-valve-actuator/
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I think that Sinope is as close as you can get for an all-in-one solution.
I use a Zooz Titan, Flume2, and a Phyn Plus on my main line... The Flume2 is integrated into Hubitat, and helps monitor for leak activity. I didn't have high expectations for it originally, but I've been very pleasantly surprised at how well it works with detecting unusual activity.
My plumber offered a really good deal on the Phyn Plus last year when he was doing some other work, so I decided why not... Unfortunately, Phyn doesn't integrate into anything, but I do like having a "second opinion" device for any unusal activity.
One thing I really about Phyn vs other similar devices is that instead of using a physical impeller in the pipe itself, it uses ultrasound to detect pressure/flow differences -- so no moving parts to potentially break apart in the pipe (I'm lookin' at you, Moen Flo).
Phyn does a regular pressure test that verifies the integrity of the entire supply piping -- I like that peace-of-mind too.
Even though my Flume is integrated, I don't have it set to automatically turn off the Titan. I just have aggressive notification alerts set up for it, and if anything happens, I would cross-check the Phyn's status and close the Titan via dashboard.
That said, I do have leak sensors strategically placed that will automatically close the valve. But something like a pipe-burst-inside-wall scenario would admittedly require a manual response action from me.
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Using the Sinopé for a while and recently caught an annoying toilet malfunction. My rule is nothing fancy - just setting flow limits for 1, 5, 20, and 60 minutes. Make sure that you include a notification method, so you are alerted to the valve closing.
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Thanks @hubitrep, I contacted Sinope about the flow sensor because on the site it says it only triggers if flow is 2L/min for 15 minutes minimum, and they verified that. Their response was-
The flowsensor we have "only" counts water when it is used on our app which is called Neviweb. It does't really protect from "exploding pipes in walls". for a 3/4 it needs to detect a minimum of 2 L / min for at least 15 minutes continuously to trigger an alarm and send you an email or close automatically depending of your choice. (so imagine 30 liters of water which is a disaster). If only a 1,9 litre / min, it will never trigger anything.
Not a great option unfortunately.
This looks like nothing more than an actuator. They sell sensors, but there is no monitoring of anomalies of flow or pressure.
Thanks @hydro311, I'm going to look into the flume. I think I'd be happy with sensors being able to close the valve, and getting aggressive notifications, at least to start with, for anomalies it senses and manually closing.
My plumber did mention he's install the Phyn, but as you mentioned it doesn't integrate, and the reviews mention a lot of false positives.
I'm less concerned about a pipe burst and more about a small leak. I had one on a dishwasher and it destroyed my cabinets and floors. Because it wasn't found right away, insurance denied the claim and I was stuck with $50k in damages.
Thanks @Hatallica, so I understand, are you using the flow sensor and defining your own rules in HE for time water is running? If so, I'm assuming it still needs to be more than 2L/minute to register?
What they are talking about is the built-in automated alert that will also shut off the valve automatically.
However the device itself reports much lower flow rates (I have seen in the 100's of mL/min) and you can theoretically set yourself alarms for whatever flow rate you want on the Hubitat, for however long you prefer.
Just did a quick test and it will start registering flow anywhere between 0.5-1L/minute. That's a pretty small stream of water tbh, it will detect the typical toilet float valve issue, but if you're looking to detect even smaller leaks using the flow sensor, I guess this isn't it.
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You're better off using a surface leak detector for that kind of issue. Sinope sell some that connect to their valve, but you could use any leak detector that works with Hubitat - Thirdreality or IKEA Badring are good choices.
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That of course is with there hub, by using Hubitat, you could make other rules of course, let's say if house is in away mode, any flow of more than x l/min will mean a leak and turn off the valve. But you need to make sure you don' t have any appliances that use water when away (water softener, grass watering, etc.) or else you will need to take that into account in your rules.
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I see a lot of noise on my low-flow measurements. By that, I mean that values bounce around a couple tenths of a liter/min. That may be due to in part vertical installation just after a 90-degree bend. Accuracy is reasonable above 2 liters/min.
Here is my simple scheme (with flow units in milliliters):
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By device, you mean the flow meter I assume. Where is it reporting this?
Thanks for testing. 0.5L/min is still a decent amount of water and if there was a small leak it might not be small enough, but I also don’t know what the other systems need to trigger. I thought they will do pressure tests, not only flow.
Yep, I have now added the Aeotec sensors in all the usual places, including under the dishwasher. I tried the ThirdRealty and liked they had an audible alert too, but they wouldn’t stay connected.
The flow meter is a passive device. It's a little turbine that activates a hall effect sensor. The valve it is connected to captures the electrical pulses that correspond to turbine rotations and calculates the flow. The valve driver reports this flow as an attribute that you can build automations on top of, using Rule Machine for example.
I doubt they get much better than this.
Think about it - if the city mains delivers at 80 psi and you're leaking 100 ml per minute, I doubt the difference in pressure would be measurable.
Perfect. Whatever valve you get, all you then need to do is set up Hubitat Safety Monitor, head to "Configure Water Alerts", make sure your Aeotec sensors are all selected, and flip on the "Close water valve on alert" toggle.
This isn't quite as good as having leak sensors directly connected to the valve, as you are dependent on a working hub (presumably hooked to a UPS, etc).
Where are you seeing the “couple tenths of liter/min”? If the valve can track that fidelity then I’m guessing you can build a rule around how long it registers that constantly, or greater for when you’re actually using something.
This is just my "noise floor". For instance, the last 5 minutes, my logged readings were between 4ml and 270ml per minute.
Otherwise, I just observed the logged measurement under various conditions.
