leak detector

5 Articles

Bed Sensors Do More Than You’d Think

December 21, 2023 by 24 Comments

Bed sensors do sort of sound like a gimmick — after all, who cares whether someone is occupying the bed? But if you think about it, that information is quite useful from a home automation standpoint. A person could do all sorts of things in this state, from ensuring the overhead lights in the room can’t come on, to turning off other smart devices that are likely not being used while both occupants are sleeping.

[The Home Automation Guy] presents a couple of ways of doing this, but both center around a fairly inexpensive pressure-sensing mat.

In the first method, he connects the pressure mat up to a Zigbee Aqara Leak Sensor, which conveniently has two terminals on the back to accept the wires from the pressure sensor. Then he simply connects it up to a Zigbee-compatible home assistant like the Aqara Hub.

In slightly harder mode, he forgoes the Aqara Leak Sensor and connects the pressure mat up to an ESP32 using a nifty screw terminal dev board. Then he sets up the sensor and all the desired actions in ESPHome. Of course, with an ESP32, it’s easy to add a second pressure mat for [Mrs. The Home Automation Guy]’s side of the bed.

Now, once they’ve both gone off to bed, the house goes into night mode — all the smart plugs, Sonos devices, and other things are powered down, and the alarm system is put into night mode. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.

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Wireless Water Detector Hooks Up To Home Assistant

September 22, 2022 by 19 Comments

Water damage can quickly make even the nicest buildings unliveable. [Andres Leon] suffered a small flood from an air conditioning unit, and wanted to avoid such issues in future. Thus, he built a wireless monitor to solve the problem.

The device is based on the ESP8266, allowing it to wirelessly communicate with Home Assistant. Thus, if it detects water via its rust-proof probes, it can notify Home Assistant via an MQTT message. From there, Home Assistant can advise the home owner remotely via phone and email. Plus, just for completeness, there’s a loud buzzer in the unit that goes off when water is detected, too. Thanks to a 2500 mAh lithium-polymer battery on board, the device can run for up to 5 months between recharges.

Integrating warning systems into one’s smart home system can be particularly useful when one is away for long periods. Things like water leaks tend to do damage over time when we’re not paying attention, so any IoT device that can assist in this regard is helpful. If you want to investigate the cause of a difficult leak, though, this other project may help. Video after the break.

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A Water Leak Detector That Listens Carefully

June 24, 2022 by 14 Comments

Water leaks can be pernicious things. Even just a few drips per minute happening undetected inside a wall can cause major damage if left unrepaired for long enough. AquaPing is a new device that hopes to detect difficult-to-find water leaks with the aid of acoustic methods. 

The AquaPing is a so-called “stand-off” sensor that is intended to detect leaks at a distance, even if they are inside a wall. No contact is needed with the plumbing itself. Instead, the device detects the broadband high-frequency noise created when water leaks from a pipe under pressure.

It’s a method that’s best suited to leaks from cracks or loose fittings. These generate a characteristic hiss that can be picked up with signal analysis even if the noise itself is obscured to human perception by other noises in the area. However, leaks like a hole in a gutter or a dripping rusted-out water tank are best found by other methods, as they don’t create this same signature noise.

The device will soon be launched on CrowdSupply as a purchasable product, however the project is fully open source for those eager to dive in themselves. We’ve featured some other really creative leak detectors before, too! Video after the break.

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Long Exposure Thermal Photography

January 28, 2015 by 10 Comments

For apparently inexplicable reasons, the price of thermal imaging cameras has been dropping precipitously over the last few years, but there are still cool things you can do with infrared temperature sensors.

A few years ago – and while he was still writing for us – [Jeremy] came across an absurdly clever thermal imaging camera. Instead of expensive silicon, this thermal camera uses a flashlight with an RGB LED, a cheap IR temperature sensor, and a camera set up to take long exposures. By shining this flashlight/IR sensor around a dark room, a camera with a wide-open shutter can record color-coded thermal images of just about anything.

Since then, an interesting product appeared on the market. It’s the Black & Decker TLD100 Thermal Leak Detector, and it’s basically an infrared thermometer and LED flashlight stuffed into one neat package. In other words, it’s the exact same thing we saw two years ago. We’d like to thank at least one Black & Decker engineer for their readership.

[Jeremy] took this cheap, off-the-shelf leak detector and did what anyone would do after realizing where the idea behind it came from. He set up his camera, turned off the lights, and opened the shutter of his camera. The results, like the original post, don’t offer the same thermal resolution as a real thermal camera. That doesn’t mean it’s still not a great idea, though.

Remote Operated Underwater Vehicle

May 5, 2010 by 10 Comments

PVC hull, SLA batteries, Bilge Pumps, sounds like a good start to [Jimmy’s] ROV project. Paintball gun (as a BCD), dual live cameras paired with an Arduino making it internet controlled, all tethered with a fiber optic cable, sounds like [Jimmy’s] ROV got a whole lot more astounding.

While some very important parts have yet to be implemented, like the leak detectors, the project looks to be going quite smoothly. With updates promised, we can’t wait to watch this continue until the end.

Related: Yellow Subs and double ROVs