Latest and Greatest on Water Flow/monitoring

[Neo1738]

Depending if you have irrigation may need two. Average supply to a 4k+ Sq foot house is 1" to house, then 3/4" to irrigation. I have 2, one for house one for irrigation.

[D.Adams]

16 hours ago, AK1 said:

The hub and sensors are critical for alerts, notifications and telling the shut-off valve to close. How else do you propose to turn off your water supply in the event of a leak?

For Leaksmart to work you must use their sensors. 

Correct me if I’m wrong but Moen Flo does not use or need any external sensors to shut off the water.

I surmised that the LeakSmart can work the same way but just offers sensors for quicker alerts and locating leaks. But as you just confirmed LeakSmart sensors are a necessary part of their system not an optional one.

[AK1]

You are correct about Moen Flo, but the length of time to turn off the water e.g. a slow leak, may vary widely given that it is monitoring flow not the presence of moisture. I am much more in favour of the reliability and speed of response for actual moisture detection rather changes in flow.

[D.Adams]

Although there is certainly an argument to be made made that. LeakSmart style system Is less effective with

• a burst pipe in the wall or anywhere without a sensor
• Water path missed the sensor completely
• Faulty sensors/offline sensors

Essentially the water shut off valve is only as good as it’s sensors. Making LeakSmart a less reliable a system.

I like the fact that Moen Flo style of prevention is

• self-contained
• detects continuous and suspicious  flow and Stops it
• tested nightly

I actually would prefer a hybrid of the two styles

• one that has the ability to detect and stop from the main supply 
• and could optionally have external wet sensors but not fully reliant on them

 

Is there a product like that now?

[AK1]

You raise some good points and the hybrid system makes total sense, but for today I still prefer some good old fashioned sensors as the primary advantage is still the near instantaneous response. 

 

[eggzlot]

You could cobble a hybrid system together and I am 2/3 of the way there.

I have water sensors in my DSC alarm panel.  I have an on/off water value from WaterCop that if the sensors sense water, the DSC panel tells C4 to shut off the water cop.  It’s all local, nothing on the cloud.  I have a Streamlabs device which does water monitoring and there is an API but no connection in c4 yet: https://support.streamlabswater.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/360000786713-Streamlabs-API-Beta

It does work with Alexa and Google Assistant but not IFTT, Wink, C4, or another automation system.  

So instead of the Streamlabs device you could use Flo by Moen.  If you are that worried, you get non cloud-local physical sensors and then cloud monitoring of any pipe activity that can catch leaks behind a wall, small drips, etc

If anyone out there is interested in writing a driver for Streamlabs I think you’d get a good customer base.  It’s very DIY as you can install on the pipe, its cheap, easily available or purchase, etc.  It is not as accurate as Flo or other in line options but it can basically detect enough flow to prevent damage.

[Neo1738]

Not optimal but could have 2 valves from water main installed and then install moen flo and sensor based unit.

[SMHarman]

Although there is certainly an argument to be made made that. LeakSmart style system Is less effective with

• a burst pipe in the wall or anywhere without a sensor
• Water path missed the sensor completely
• Faulty sensors/offline sensors

Essentially the water shut off valve is only as good as it’s sensors. Making LeakSmart a less reliable a system.
I like the fact that Moen Flo style of prevention is

• self-contained
• detects continuous and suspicious  flow and Stops it
• tested nightly

I actually would prefer a hybrid of the two styles

• one that has the ability to detect and stop from the main supply 
• and could optionally have external wet sensors but not fully reliant on them

 
Is there a product like that now?

You could do that with Control4 in the middle. A water bug or alarm or something trips a relay in Control4 telling flo to shut off.

[D.Adams]

39 minutes ago, SMHarman said:

12 hours ago, D.Adams said:

Although there is certainly an argument to be made made that. LeakSmart style system Is less effective with

• a burst pipe in the wall or anywhere without a sensor
• Water path missed the sensor completely
• Faulty sensors/offline sensors

Essentially the water shut off valve is only as good as it’s sensors. Making LeakSmart a less reliable a system.
I like the fact that Moen Flo style of prevention is

• self-contained
• detects continuous and suspicious  flow and Stops it
• tested nightly

I actually would prefer a hybrid of the two styles

• one that has the ability to detect and stop from the main supply 
• and could optionally have external wet sensors but not fully reliant on them

 
Is there a product like that now?

You could do that with Control4 in the middle. A water bug or alarm or something trips a relay in Control4 telling flo to shut off.

That would work great. Well except for the fact that the Control4 driver for Moen Flo is still ...SOL

[D.Adams]

But thanks Stacy, that puts me back to the Moen Flo camp. Just hope that the API for the driver gets released soon.

[SMHarman]

That would work great. Well except for the fact that the Control4 driver for Moen Flo is still ...SOL

Who is writing this and why is it so hard?

[South Africa C4 user]

1 hour ago, D.Adams said:

But thanks Stacy, that puts me back to the Moen Flo camp. Just hope that the API for the driver gets released soon.

The Moen driver was re-released a couple of months ago by @Cinegration .  New API.  The driver looks really good except that it seems to hang the C4 system after a while (24 hours) if you have a Moen account with multiple residences and multiple Flo units at one of the residences.  Unfortunately, that is my situation. I understand that he developer is working on this and I have an open ticket with DriverCentral.

Linking C4 to Flo looks very powerful as you can definitely make Flo more smart for your given situation. For instance I have a Flo on my irrigation circuit, a Flo on my pool auto filler and a Flo on my Mains amongst other things at my holiday home.

I have programmed my holiday home system (just waiting for a working Flo driver to drop back in to the system) to do the following when I am not in residence:

1. Shut off the irrigation Flo if it is running when Control4 is not running an irrigation program.

2. Shut off the pool autofiller Flo if the pool should not be filling at that point in time (there are only 3 hours in a day when my pool rim flow runs and it is only then that refilling should happen automatically due to the plumbing).

3. Shut off my mains Flo if it is running and neither the pool autofiller or the irrigation Flo are running.

I have set running to mean running for 30 seconds or more.

For my setup, this will give much more protection than Flo does natively and I have also set C4 up to collate information that I find useful and e-mail it to me once a week.

[D.Adams]

Can that issue not be easily cir-compassed by having a separate C4 and separate Moen account?

[South Africa C4 user]

8 hours ago, D.Adams said:

Can that issue not be easily cir-compassed by having a separate C4 and separate Moen account?

Probably... but I go in to Moen on the app every day, and if I go for 2 different accounts then I will be logging in an out of Moen all of the time.  I am also not 100% sure (not sure of the developer is either) as to whether the issue is multiple devices or multiple residences or both.  I have given the developer (via Driver Central) my login and password for Moen, so hopefully they are making progress on the issue!

[Cinegration]

On 5/23/2020 at 9:26 AM, South Africa C4 user said:

Probably... but I go in to Moen on the app every day, and if I go for 2 different accounts then I will be logging in an out of Moen all of the time.  I am also not 100% sure (not sure of the developer is either) as to whether the issue is multiple devices or multiple residences or both.  I have given the developer (via Driver Central) my login and password for Moen, so hopefully they are making progress on the issue!

Hi,

  This should have already been corrected with a recent release.  We'll follow up with you this week and handle.

 

Thanks!

 

[xega]

Does the Phyn Plus integrate into control4 at all? I can't find a driver anywhere but worth checking, it includes the features that Flo by Moen charges monthly and is a pressure sensor rather than just flow.

[Cinegration]

4 hours ago, xega said:

Does the Phyn Plus integrate into control4 at all? I can't find a driver anywhere but worth checking, it includes the features that Flo by Moen charges monthly and is a pressure sensor rather than just flow.

Flo monitors pressure, temperature and flo rate  

 

[South Africa C4 user]

On 5/25/2020 at 4:13 PM, Cinegration said:

Hi,

  This should have already been corrected with a recent release.  We'll follow up with you this week and handle.

 

Thanks!

 

@Cinegration - thanks! Unfortunately the problem is still there.  However, my dealer and I monitored the issue quite closely this weekend and I will send a more detailed not to Driver Central.  I am pretty sure the issue is linked to multiple residences but may be wrong...