FLUME WATER METER INSTALL
FLUME WATER METER PLUS

In the Detailed view, you can compare your usage to similar households.Īnd that’s where Flume can truly inject some smarts into your daily routine. Whenever you run water using one of your faucets or spigots, Flume will estimate how many gallons you’re using by reading your meter like the water company does, so you can break it down by weeks, days, and even individual showers. You’ll need to spend a week or so with it before you can get a decent overview of your water use, but it’ll be far more enlightening than your monthly water bill. (Flume and Orbit-manufacturer of B-Hyve smart sprinkler timers-announced a partnership at CES that will enable homeowners who buy both systems to monitor indoor water use independently of outdoor water use.)Įven without traditional smart home if-this-than-that capabilities, Flume is still plenty intelligent. If you have an irrigation or inground sprinkler system, Flume will monitor that too. I wouldn’t mind the ability to interact with other smart devices-like maybe flashing a Hue light when a leak is detected-but I was happy with Flume’s detection skills. Still, I found Flume more useful on a regular basis than, say, a physical sensor that detects wetness to ping your phone. The Flume Dashboard contains a wealth of information about your water use. While that makes Flume less capable than competing products such as the $400 Flo by Moen or the $700 Phyn Plus, it’s also considerably less expensive than either of those devices. So if Home Alone’s Wet Bandits strike, you’ll know, but you’ll need to phone a family member or neighbor to ask if they will shut off your water supply if you’re on vacation.

FLUME WATER METER INSTALL

Since Flume doesn’t install in line with your water pipe, however, you can’t send it a command to shut off your water supply in the event of an emergency (or have it do so automatically). Just be warned: Some water meters might not be compatible with Flume, so check your model before you buy. Thankfully, that doesn’t need a power source, though at some point the “long-life” batteries inside it will need to be changed.

It’s a bit like putting on a face mask for scuba diving, with a rubber strap that tightly secures it to the pipe and a large curved rectangle that rests on the front. Once the Flume is connected to the bridge, you’ll need to strap the Flume to your water meter. The Flume Wi-Fi bridge is quite large, especially compared to Ring’s and Hue’s bridges. The sensor and the bridge don’t need to be near each other either (since they communicate via radio waves), so any tucked-away outlet will do. There’s a relatively large Wi-Fi bridge that must be plugged to an electrical outlet to communicate with the main sensor, but since your main water pipe is likely in the basement or tucked out of the way, it shouldn’t be too hard to hide it. Honestly, it’s not much harder to set up than a Philips Hue smart light.

Instead of mounting on your main water supply, this detector attaches to your water meter-and you won’t need any tools to get that done. Easy setup, peasy monitoringĪfter passing on several leak detectors that required pipe cutting, I was intrigued by Flume’s design. And even if that day never comes, there’s a good chance it will save you a few bucks over time. But if Flume can detect a small leak from a faucet, it’ll also be able to tell you when a more dangerous problem is lurking, one that you probably wouldn’t see it until it’s too late. Now, you might think that a dripping faucet that I’d eventually notice isn’t reason enough to drop $200 on yet another smart device. That led me to deduce that one of the kids left a trickle of water running in the downstairs bathroom, which I promptly turned off. Surprisingly, at least one of them remembered to wash their hands, because later that night I got a text alert from Flume informing me that a potential leak was detected.Įven though the warning said water use was averaging 0.34 gallons per minute (which is relatively high), when I drilled down into the app’s minute-by-minute view, I saw a steady reading of only around 0.02 gallons per minute when the water should have been off. Michael Simon/IDGĪ simple rubber strap holds the Flume water monitor in place.Īround the holidays I had a few of my son’s friends over for a party overflowing with pizza and juice boxes, and inevitably several of them needed to use the bathroom.

FLUME WATER METER PLUS

This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best water leak detectors, where you’ll find reviews of competing products, plus a buyer’s guide to the features you should consider when shopping.