Update - ended up reaching out to 3reality support and found that the firmware needed updating, but it wouldn't update for my through habitat. They explained that the firmware and sdk that needed to updated was a large package and zigbee network is designed for low traffic so I needed to move the sensors next to the hub. You also need to look at live logs after kicking off the firmware update, you won't see the update logs in past logs, and debug logging needs to be on. After doing this I did get the firmware updated to one ending 3A, however the application was supposed to also update to 3A and mine did not. If it had been successful I was told I should see this, but I didn't.
I told them they can have them back and they offered to send me replacements that were already updated.
You may have noticed I mentioned SDK, that's because their chip vendor had an upgrade that broke backwards compatibility and this updated is required for these things to work correctly. Certainly not a common thing, but was a pit perturbed that I bought them less than 2 months ago from 3reality and they sent me something that needed to be updated, and that update would work in a normal environment. I only knew because I had a small leak and didn't get a notification through habitat/homekit. Wonder how many water sensors are out there that won't work right now, so check them if you have them, The one saving grace with these is that they do have an audible alert.
It will be a couple weeks before I have the replacements, but once I do I'll report back if there's any further issues with device activity check once with the latest firmware and app versions.
Essentially this. I own a dozen of these sensors and use them for the same reason you do, however I do not view them as reliable, even though I've never had one "fall off the mesh".
There's no concept of a maintained connection and one can only speculate on the device's status based on the age of the last message received vs its usual behaviour. Again we are "lucky" in the case of this specific device as it seems to always respond to "read attribute" requests (part of what Refresh() does) so you have control over the interval of quiet you can be comfortable with. I am personally OK with a 24-hour check-in period. When we're in, the audible signal from the device is enough to get our attention.
I use these in combination with an automated main water valve (a Sinope). The valve is closed whenever the house is empty, preventing any possibility of a major leak while we're away, or at any time one of the leak sensors is triggered. The valve is mains-powered and has 4xAAA Lithium battery backup that can last for weeks. You can also buy a (wired) flow sensor that installs in series with the valve and allows some leak detection to be done that way.
Although the one I use is controlled via HE, you can get versions of this valve to which water sensors can be (wirelessly) connected directly so you don't have to rely on a hub.
I stumbled upon this new 3A firmware a couple of days ago. Installed it on one of my devices. I did not need to move it close to the hub, however it did take something like 30 minutes (and 2,800 zigbee messages) to complete.
I have good and bad news.
Good : with debug logs on, I can see that an update comes in once per hour. Not visible without debug logs because the hub filters attribute reports that are not a state change. Looks like an IAS report so I am assuming this is wet/dry status and, since it doesn't change, the hub is filtering the report.
EDIT: when I first took the screenshot I noticed the in and out clusters were missing so I went back and set the driver to Device and hit GetInfo before going back to the moisture driver. Now that the clusters are there the battery reports 99%
Interesting, I’ll look into the valve. Wouldn’t have helped with my situation though, I had a slow leak under a dishwasher that damaged all the cabinets from the inside/underneath and the flooring before I noticed it. Found out that it’s common for insurance to now have an exclusion that they won’t cover leaks that lasted for more than 14 days, whether you’re aware or not, so i got screwed.
Wow sorry to hear that. Yeah the flow sensor is pretty sensitive (seen it report low 100s of millilitres/minute) but probably not sensitive enough for effective detection of what you experienced.
