Hey… is the fortrezz only a freeze alarm, or can it also report current temperature as well?
Yes, it checks it once in 4 hours by default
Can the 4 hour window be adjusted?
Yes it can, but I was warned that its battery will die sooner.
If it was regular AA or AAA I wouldn’t care much, but with their battery… dunno
Said that, if you want temp sensor that actually works get HSM100
in my case I have the HSM100 and am playing around with it (with AC adapter mod). Just was interested in the freeze alert and the new flood alert. Great for alarms under the sink or where the pipes come in (I call that the panic room only cause its a claustrophobic area under the place). Nice to know before I buy if it can do other things. In my case a 4 hour update is fine… its just nice to see what the temperature really is, doesn’t have to be real time, and its half the price of an HSM100.
(Okay, okay the HSM100 does 3 times as much… )…
Les,
The WWA-01 water sensor will report current temp every 4 hour’s by default, and you can set the wakeup to anything using Vera. The temperature feature is really meant for alarming low temperature alarms and was not designed for use as a temperature sensor like the HSM100. Setting the wake up interval too often will reduce the battery life.
We have a new water sensor currently in development that will run on AAA’s and have additional features such as temperature reading by probe, water level, weather resistant casing for outdoor use, and more. I’ll post more info when it is available.
Now you’re talking! 
I have a WWA-01 and the newer pre-production model WWA-02 and they are both working excellent. I set my wakeup time to 1800 seconds (30 min) and it’s been like this on my basement floor for almost 6 months at this interval. The battery lasts quite a long time, it’s still on 70%.
One trick is to not lay the WWA-01 on a concrete floor directly, since that will drain it quicker. I put a little bit of double-sided tape under it making sure not to cover the contacts (looks like 2 metal staples). Plop it on the floor under your sink, water heater, boiler, water tank, etc and that’s it. I did have some issues with range but adding a few more devices in my basement helped relay the signal upstairs to Vera. The WWA-02 which I just got the other day is very similar, except it has an LED instead of alarm speaker. This makes the sensor last much longer, and let’s admit it, that buzzer wasn’t the loudest.
Also, I’ve seen some people chatting about the battery…You can order them from FortrezZ cheap, if you try and go to the local radio shack, you’ll get ROYALLY screwed at a whopping $20. I think they are much much cheaper from FortrezZ.
When you want to see the temp of the FortrezZ WWA-01 you need to go into ADVANCED section to find it. You’ll also find the battery level here too. I’m hoping the new UI4 solves this, since it doesn’t show with UI3 or on UI2 from what I remember. BUT, you can use the latest Smartphone Plugin and see the temp in the GUI there, thanks to Javier fixing a few things. See [url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=3320.30]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=3320.30[/url]
I have a few new FortrezZ devices I’m reviewing right now and hope to publish the review sometime this weekend or early next week. I’ll be sure to post it here so you can see how I set them up in our Z-Wave network.
Outstanding. I can think of many applications for this (both useful, and entirely silly but cool nonetheless) for this. I just bought two of your WWA-01s for use under my dishwasher and bathroom sink (trust your own plumbing skills, but verify ) in the meantime.
thanks to the last few posters for the updates and helpful info, great details!
Thanks for the comments.
If anyone has any ideas or any feature recommendations for our new water sensor, now is the time to tell us. It is still in design, so we would appreciate all the comments and feedback you can give.
hmmm can you give us any ideas of what it will do? or what will be new?
Here’s the current features/specs:
- NEMA 4 water resistant enclosure
- plug in wired probe
- 3 AA batteries (not final, may be AAA’s)
- LED indicator light
- Same water leak detection fuction as WWA-01 sensor
- Water level (by wired probe)
- Water Temperature (by wired probe)
- Direct association with up to 5 other devices
- Latest Zensys release ZDK 4.51
That’s primarily it. If I missed something, i’ll add it later.
Perhaps you’re right, but to me the very need to special-order batteries seems ridiculous. Besides, I’m in Canada, and I doubt it will be that affordable to order batteries from the States.
What I don’t understand about WWA-01 is how could it be designed in a way so user can’t just test it? Single test kills the battery, so I have to remove the device, open it to change the battery - which means I have to re-test again! I’m from IT world, and I just can’t close the battery lid, put WWA-01 in the corner, and quietly hope it will work if leak happens
[quote=“fortrezZ, post:13, topic:165909”]Here’s the current features/specs:
- NEMA 4 water resistant enclosure
- plug in wired probe
- 3 AA batteries (not final, may be AAA’s)
- LED indicator light
- Same water leak detection fuction as WWA-01 sensor
- Water level (by wired probe)
- Water Temperature (by wired probe)
- Direct association with up to 5 other devices
- Latest Zensys release ZDK 4.51
That’s primarily it. If I missed something, i’ll add it later.[/quote]
Sounds perfect. I’d be first in line to buy it assuming it’s not priced in WV-01 manner
In order to see if it’s working you can plop it in the freezer to bring the temp down to 36-38F or less, this causes an alarm, or you can test with a wet sponge and then it should beep and send an alert. Drying it immediately will cause it to reset and not waste the battery. But, Fortrezz agree’s that the buzzer wasted too much battery life and wasn’t loud enough, so they switched to an LED instead. This is much better.
if you do have a WWA-01, open her up and clip one of the speaker wires, this will still work and not buzz, saving you precious battery life. I haven’t tried this but it should work just fine.
I’ll try to snap the wire… once I find a new battery
BTW, I dried it immediately, but it died after 2 attempts.
You may have mis-understood, sorry. Testing the battery should be no problem. The issue becomes when people test it repeatedly and then set the wake up interval to every 6 minutes or so, so they can use it as a temp sensor (which it’s not intended to do). Then after a week or two, their battery is dead…
If your battery went dead after just a few tests, something is wrong. It may be a defective battery.
For example, we demo’d WWA-01’s at trade shows, where we had it alarming all day long for 3 days. We checked the batteries after the show, and they were still OK to use, but nearly drained (but still showing 2.9 to 3V).
I had one unit in my basement near my sump, and last week, I had a main drain pipe leak. The water sensor went off for about 1/2 hour before I got to it, and that sensor has been there idle for over 1 year.
Oh, too bad I didn’t know that - I used the battery that came with the sensor. I remember, after two short tests next morning I found it buzzing while sitting on the shelf with no water around, but I didn’t know for how long… I guess there’s something wrong with the sensor itself.
Ah, my guess is its the battery. They’ll buzz like that when the battery is very low.