INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

Posted on
Wed Oct 09, 2013 4:30 pm
jay (support) offline
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INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

This topic is to discuss the Water Leak Sensor from INSTEON.

Device Details
How to use with Indigo

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Sun Nov 24, 2013 12:39 pm
norm offline
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INSTEON Water Leak Sensor - Lesson Learned

A couple of weeks ago, our dishwasher quit on us. Since, the repairman said it was going to cost almost $350 to fix, we opted to buy a new one instead. When the new one arrived and they pulled the old one out, it was a mess! Can you say "mold?" It appears there had been some sort of slow leak over a long time that had completely messed up the floor under the dishwasher to the tune of $1100 to repair before the new one could even be put in the same space.

Lesson learned! I put an INSTEON Leak Detector under the new dishwasher. Of course, we had been selling the INSTEON Leak Detector since last November when they first came out, but like the cobbler's children having no shoes, I had never incorporated them into my Indigo system. I was worried at first that the detector would not be able to transmit the signal from underneath a metal enclosure like a dishwasher. However, it's been working like a charm for the past week, sending me a nice little daily trigger email that says, "All is well" when the heartbeat transmission hits my system. Here's hoping I never get the other trigger email I set up that says, "ALERT - Dishwasher is leaking."
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— Norm
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Posted on
Sun Nov 24, 2013 12:46 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

Norm,
just a question, how will you replace the battery in a year+? remove the dishwasher or do you have access from the front?
Karl

Posted on
Sun Nov 24, 2013 7:37 pm
norm offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

I covered that process with the installer when he put the Dishwasher in. He showed me the best place to put it right near the sump pump about 6 inches in from the front. The bottom kick panel just attaches with two simple screws. Take it off; reach in and pull out the Leak Detector; change the battery; put it back in place; and reattach the kick panel. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes.

— Norm
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Posted on
Sun Dec 07, 2014 8:38 am
denno offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

My Indigo system currently just has X10 and Insteon switches. What additional hardware would I need to use the leak sensor? Smarthome 2443 Access Point INSTEON Wireless Phase Coupler??

Posted on
Sun Dec 07, 2014 10:02 am
FlyingDiver online
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

denno wrote:
My Indigo system currently just has X10 and Insteon switches. What additional hardware would I need to use the leak sensor? Smarthome 2443 Access Point INSTEON Wireless Phase Coupler??


Do you have the Insteon modem? http://store.indigodomo.com/protocol/in ... 2413u.html ?

If so, you probably don't need anything else. Maybe a Range Extender if the distance from your Mac to the sensor is too far. http://store.indigodomo.com/protocol/in ... 2-222.html

joe

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my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Sun Dec 07, 2014 11:21 am
denno offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

I do have the 2413U-forgot about that :oops:
I was going to put the leak sensors in the basement almost directly below where the Mac and 2413U are located on the 1st floor. I guess I'll start with that and maybe try the range extender in the basement if they're not picked up??

Thanks for the help.


FlyingDiver wrote:
denno wrote:
My Indigo system currently just has X10 and Insteon switches. What additional hardware would I need to use the leak sensor? Smarthome 2443 Access Point INSTEON Wireless Phase Coupler??


Do you have the Insteon modem? http://store.indigodomo.com/protocol/in ... 2413u.html ?

If so, you probably don't need anything else. Maybe a Range Extender if the distance from your Mac to the sensor is too far. http://store.indigodomo.com/protocol/in ... 2-222.html

joe

Posted on
Sun Dec 07, 2014 12:40 pm
FlyingDiver online
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

Directly below? I doubt you'll need the extender.

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:35 pm
dduff617 offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

documentation and experiments indicate that when water is sensed, group 2 will be sent from the device and will cause the indigo device state to become ON.

is it the case that when the device dries out, group 1 will be sent? and will this switch the indigo device state back to OFF or does the indigo state latch to ON state until turned off "manually"?

Posted on
Sun Mar 15, 2015 10:10 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

Indigo will change its state to OFF on receiving group 1 ON, which I believe is what the leak sensor sends on drying.

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Posted on
Tue Apr 28, 2015 1:13 pm
Unklmarty offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor sending way too many heartbeat

I have 3 Insteon water sensors and each of them send me 20+ heartbeats each day. I replaced the batteries yesterday and today 2 of them sent me, via email (as per trigger settings) 23 heartbeats each. The other one sent me 2 heartbeats. This multiple emails happens almost every day. Help it's driving me crazy. I really need the WS since I am in a high water table area and water sometimes seeps up along the basement floor and outside walls. Last time I got water, the devices did send me multipule alerts as expected. How to I control; the heartbeat problem?
Marty

Posted on
Thu Apr 30, 2015 2:39 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

So you have Triggers defined that send out an email every time a heartbeat is sent? I'd suggest instead having it email you if no heartbeats are received within a 24 hour period. There are a few different ways to do that, but one would be to create a Schedule that is a repeating action every 24 hours which sends the "no heartbeat email", then on your Triggers for when a Heartbeat is received have them disable that schedule for 24 hours. So every time a new heartbeat comes in, it temporarily disables the email schedule for that module. If no heartbeat comes in, then the schedule automatically re-enables after 24 hours and the email goes out.

Also note you can just ignore the heartbeats altogether. If all you are interest in is the alerts from the Leak Sensor, then you can catch just that INSTEON message and use that in your Trigger (thus heartbeats won't trigger anything).

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Posted on
Fri May 01, 2015 8:24 pm
Perry The Cynic offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

Does this device not report an actual battery level?

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-- perry

Posted on
Sat May 02, 2015 10:19 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

Correct, I don't believe it does.

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Posted on
Sat May 02, 2015 10:34 am
Unklmarty offline
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Re: INSTEON Water Leak Sensor

Thanks Matt for the work-around, it's a cool idea that I might end up using the framework for other tasks.
For the heartbeat annoyance, it might just be easier for me to change the batteries when I change batteries in the smoke detectors. That way I don't really need to see the heartbeat and I know they have fresh batteries, it's only 1 AA battery. KISS
Marty

btw new Indigo Touch app looks Fantastic and , functionality... WOW. Thank you and your team for all your efforts. It is greatly appreciated.

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