Water Leak is Considered a Security and Smoke or CO Alarm 1 1

[JimC 31]

I posted this in the 'Official' forum as well.  But thought I would do so here in case it's of interest and not seen in the other forum.  -Jim C

Last night at 11:45 PM I had a minor leak in my basement that was detected by my leak detector.  We were all asleep.  My system is setup to do following for leaks:

Silent Alarm

Rule: Alert- Water Leak Detected (When Water Leak Sensor Basement reports a leak, then send Jim a message via Email.)

Here's what happened:

Phone call (I assume part of the silent alarm)

Email Rule (above)

Push notification

Flashing v1 keypads (no sound)

And the following scenes were run:

Smoke or CO- Open Garage Door (When smoke or carbon monoxide are detected, then run Open Garage Door.)

Smoke or CO- Turn ON Inside Lights (When smoke or carbon monoxide are detected, then run All Indoor Lights On.)

Smoke or CO- Turn ON Outside Lights (When smoke or carbon monoxide are detected, then run All Outside Lights On.)

 

It was a little disturbing for everyone in the house to be woken up by the phone and all the lights on because of some heavy rain.  Alarms should be broken into three separate categories with individual settings:  Security, Leak, and Smoke/CO.  Breaking Smoke/CO into two would be even better.  

I do have to give credit for that fact that all that stuff happened immediately.  The platform in general has come a long way since the initial transition to v2.

[calvinroberts 7]

I just installed my first Smart Water Sensor and it was configured the same way that you had described yours to be, but the act of simply picking it up put the entire house into DEFCON 5.  WTF ?  IS there a fix or is that the normal response to water?  

[Wlepse 77]

I don't think there is a way around that at the moment but to be honest I would rather have this than the alternative. Several times now my system has gone off for a water leak, but it wasn't a small leak, since my phones are set to do not disturb at night I wouldn't have known about it until the morning and by then it could have been quite a bit of damage. Obviously the sensor has no way to tell if it is a big or little leak so it can only respond in one way. By default this option is better for me, though I do wish you could have a different siren. One night when this happened at 2 or 3 in the morning my son (7yo at the time) heard it and was hiding in his closet since he thought someone broke in. It would be great if the siren could have different alert tones for different alarms. 

[sparc 238]

Or better integration with Alexa that allowed you to choose voice announcements for events like monitoring a door on the back of the house and reporting when it is opened or a garage door just opened OR Alexa could tell you about a water leak and not declare a full alert like an F5 tornado was bearing down on you.

I just wish my leak detectors would all stay connected. Two of the four lose their connection every day, and every day sooner or later they come back, not at the same time each day, it's random as to when they drop out or come back, which is what is making it tough to figure out if it's external (interference with RF signal) or something in the Iris system (bad code, malfunctioning units, etc.) that is causing it.

[JimC 31]

On 11/26/2018 at 7:39 AM, Wlepse said:

I don't think there is a way around that at the moment but to be honest I would rather have this than the alternative. Several times now my system has gone off for a water leak, but it wasn't a small leak, since my phones are set to do not disturb at night I wouldn't have known about it until the morning and by then it could have been quite a bit of damage. Obviously the sensor has no way to tell if it is a big or little leak so it can only respond in one way. By default this option is better for me, though I do wish you could have a different siren. One night when this happened at 2 or 3 in the morning my son (7yo at the time) heard it and was hiding in his closet since he thought someone broke in. It would be great if the siren could have different alert tones for different alarms. 

You bring up a good point.  If you had a fire, the last thing you would want is your son hiding in the closet.  Some way to differentiate alarms would be ideal.