I have two of these sensors on different floors of my house, and I was wondering how I could easily cover more of the critical areas of the house without buying more sensors. There are at least 3 other spots in my basement, for example, where I would like to place the water probes, and I would be OK with just one “Basement” sensor for alerts.
With my limited knowledge of how the flood sensors actually work, I’ve been tinkering with home made “extenders” - simply by connecting two long cables to each of the original prongs. My rationale is that if the circuit is “closed” (water) at any probe end, the sensor will be tripped. This seems to work OK.
I haven’t yet tried this as I was hoping to get some insights from the posters on this forum. I’ve been looking for individual water sensor prongs (contacts) so that this hack looks somewhat decent
Lowe’s sells these water sensors under the Utilitec Brand for their Iris HA system. They are zwave devices and work perfectly with Vera. Less than $30 each. Sure beats splicing wires!
Here, Lowe’s does sell a few z-wave devices for use with their Iris home automation system. Look for the z-wave label. The devices include GE switches and power outlets, Utilitech sensors and sirens, First Alert smoke/CO alarms, Kwikset and Schlage locks.
Other Iris-branded products (motion sensors, garage door openers, etc.) are proprietary [Zigbee] and will not work with Vera or other z-wave controllers.
Just as an update – these are the type of sensors I’m looking for my my little ‘hack.’ I found a supplier in China and I’m trying to negotiate a reasonable shipping fee.
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@jefflabe, yes, I’ve had much success with this setup. I’ve installed them around the perimeter of the basement and key areas where possible leaks can occur (water tank, humidifier, etc) and all has been working perfectly.
Thank you for your reply!! I have a few questions if that is okay…
1.) What is the maximum cable length (between the ST812 and sensor(s)) that you have successfully used?
2.) How many sensors have you successfully attached to one ST812?
3.) What is your source (Chinese or otherwise) to procure the sensors?
Have you tested the hack at different battery voltages? How about with some corrosion on the probes? At $30 a piece, on a critical but seldom activated device, I don’t see the value in doing a hack.
My water sensor saved my butt several months ago. I’m sure not going to mess around with making it less reliable.
Hello DZ, Thank you for your input - and I think your logic is sound. However, this hack is not all about saving $30 per zwave flood sensor unit. I have areas in my house where 2 or 3 sensors/probes would provide much better leak detection coverage than one. I could buy 2 or 3 leak detectors, hang them on the wall right next to each other, pair them with vera, and put in 9 new batteries every 6-12 months – or I could use one leak detector and attach multiple probes to it.
Good point as well on the battery voltages – however I am also working on a “hack” to run these leak detectors off an AC adapter so the battery voltage will not be an issue. Thanks again! Jeff
@jefflabe – my current setup extends to 4.5m with 6 sensors. I purchased the sensors from China. I haven’t yet experimented with longer cable lengths and/or more sensors.
@dzmiller’s - your concerns are certainly valid and the battery issue is something I will further test. The cost of the zwave sensor is approx $70 here in Canada, unfortunately, hence this mod.
[quote=“jefflabe, post:10, topic:176747”]1.) What is the maximum cable length (between the ST812 and sensor(s)) that you have successfully used?
2.) How many sensors have you successfully attached to one ST812?
3.) What is your source (Chinese or otherwise) to procure the sensors?[/quote]
Apologies for the super late reply :-[. If I’m not mistaken, I bought the probes on other Aliexpress or eBay for around $2-3 a piece. So far, the system has been very stable.
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