What Can the Phyn Smart Water Sensor Do for You?
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Today we’re taking a look at the Phyn Smart water sensor, its accessories and how it can protect your home.
This post is more effective in video form:
But for searchability, the post is easier for looking for that one nugget of information you need to remember later.
The Phyn Smart Water sensor is a little device that you place on the floor, inside a cabinet or any location where a plumbing leak is more likely to occur.
If a leak occurs and water is detected, the Phyn Smart Water Sensor will let you know. The device itself will start flashing the LED backlit Phyn logo on top as well as set off an alarm.
Leak testing the Phyn Smart Water Sensor and you can see the LED on top is flashing red.
If you have the Phyn app installed it will send a push notification and you can also enable text message alerts.
While an alert is active, you’ll see it in the active notifications tab in the Phyn app.
Once you’ve had a chance to address the issue, the alarm and light automatically turns off as soon as the sensor is removed from the water source. A second set of notifications comes across letting you know the problem is resolved.
In addition to leak detection, it also alerts you if temperature or humidity thresholds you set are exceeded.
By default you will receive a low temperature alert when the temperature detected by the sensor falls below 42 °F. You can modify this to anywhere between 32 to 60 degrees. The humidity defaults are 30% for low humidity and 50% for high humidity. Low humidity can be set between 1% to 49% and high humidity can be set between 31% and 100%. This is important because if humidity is too low your house starts cracking as it dries out. Too high and your home is at risk of molding. A high humidity reading can also signify the presence of water somewhere in the same room, but out of reach of the sensor.
A pool of water can increase the humidity in the room.
When a Phyn Smart Water Sensor is paired with Phyn Plus, the sensor can tell Phyn Plus to shut off the water to your house if it detects the presence of water.
Pairing Phyn Plus with the Phyn Smart Water Sensor is the BEST feature of both devices.
Looking back at how long it takes Phyn Plus to detect a leak, there’s no getting around it, a leak has to be out of the ordinary. So placing a sensor in a high risk area and having the sensor shut off the water within seconds (exactly how long is discussed at the bottom of this article) is the difference between ripping out a bathroom and wiping up a few cups of water with a rag.
Why the cups of water? Because once the water is off the plumbing still has to depressurize, which is the leak point. If it is a small leak, it could take a while for the plumbing to lose pressure and you could address the issue before the entire system discharges.
A Phyn Smart Water Sensor without Phyn Plus lets you know a leak is present, but gives you absolutely no ability to address the issue if you aren’t home.
While a Phyn Smart water sensor is fully compatible with other Phyn devices, having Phyn Plus or a Phyn Smart Water Assistant is not a requirement. These little devices can operate independently. You just won’t have an automated means of shutting off water when you are away from home or if you miss the alerts.
As you can see for yourself, the Phyn Smart Water Sensor is slick and compact at just over an inch tall and 3.5” in diameter.
You can buy additional accessories to expand its capability.
Sensor cables and extension nodes allow the Phyn Smart Water Sensor to cover more space. The sensor cable is designed so that it can expand the area in question, detecting water along the entire length of the cable. This is ideal for any place really, but especially around water heaters, or any location where the path of water could be questionable and, really, unpredictable. The extension node, in contrast, essentially doubles the capacity of the main water sensor. It is the perfect answer beneath a double vanity in a bathroom or between multiple appliances in small areas.
The sensor cables and extension nodes are reusable. When the cable or sensor is dried, it will continue to work as normal. If it’s not dry it will set the main sensor off again.
Both the sensor cable or extension node are 4 feet long…
I got an extra Inch on one cable and the node!
… and can be daisy chained.
You can have up to three sensor cables or two sensor cables and an extension node.
It’s important to note, the main water sensor will continue to monitor water, humidity and temperature, even with an additional accessory attached. This is not the case for all other water sensors on the market.
Here are the rest of the technical specs on the Phyn smart water sensor.
The Phyn Smart Water Sensor has 3 contact points.
Water must continuously touch at least two of them to trigger the alarm.
On contact point in water will not trigger the alarm on the Phyn Smart Water Sensor.
When you remove a sensor from the water source it immediately turns off. There is still water on the contact points, but they are not connected so the alarm turns off.
The sensor takes two AA batteries and may last up to 2 years.
There are a few settings to extend the life of the batteries:
- Low power mode
- Occasional Update Mode
- And Frequent Update Mode
With all of these settings, they are just referring to how often the temperature and humidity measurements are taken. The water sensor is always active and will send alerts immediately if a leak is detected.
The Phyn app will alert you when the batteries are getting low. Customer support explained the app will send push notification as the batteries get low. I tried pilfering old batteries from my Alfred DB2 front door lock with 5% power left (yet they still unlock the door after almost two years) and a LeapFrog Scout which is still singing…sort of…the amount varies as the batteries go out. Both sets of batteries did not have enough juice to power on the sensor, but the next morning, the app did note that the device was offline.
I’m going to stop trying to get a push notification at this point and I’ll show you in the long term review video.
Speaking of battery power, the LED Phyn logo does not stay on. It only flashes when you are setting up the network and when an alert is triggered.
The Phyn app can handle up to 9 of these water sensors. Here is the workaround if you would like more. You can add an additional location (up to 6 “homes” are possible in the Phyn app) and it can have the same address.
However, if you have Phyn Plus, it will only work with 9 of the sensors on one quoty fingers “location”. So choose your 9 riskiest places to work with Phyn Plus.
Another workaround could be to install two Phyn Plus devices in series to support up to 18 sensors…
This was the *best* part of the video. Behind the scenes time: when I previewed the video with my daughters, my oldest gasped when she saw the second one appear. This was only the second time I’ve used a mask in Final Cut Pro and I’m not sure which I like more–“having” a second Phyn Plus or seeing Phyn Plus drive off in the distance like KITT (for those of you who saw the Knight Rider Phyn Plus Gen 2 introduction).
…but talking to customer service about that idea…it wasn’t a recommended solution. It would be nice if the number of sensors supported by a single device could go up in the future, but there are currently no plans at this time. I’ll update this post if that changes.
Unlike the shutoff valve, which is ruggedized to MIL-STD-810G, these units are intended only for indoor use.
The other thing you don’t want to do with a sensor is to fully submerge it in water. The holes on the top are for the speaker.
Although you see my videos with the dramatic water smashing into the device, the part you don’t see is me madly drying it off as soon as the camera stops.
I was relying on water viscosity to stop anything from going inside in the “short term” (ie. seconds)
In real life, for example, don’t place it right under the p-trap or the water shutoffs.
This Phyn Smart Water Sensor is placed between the shut off valve, the fill valve on the toilet, and the now infamous diaper sprayer which still has an 8 second leak (but I keep it in the off position now).
Not only does placing it just off to the side keep water out of the speaker, but it allows the water to reach the contact points on the bottom faster.
The next point is price. Each sensor is $39.99 and that includes the sensor and the AA batteries. The Extension Node is $9.99 and the Sensor Cable is $25.99. You can buy exactly what you want without spending extra on nodes or cables that won’t get used which is not true for all other sensors on the market.
Only one node is shown because they don’t automatically come with the sensor, keeping your price down so you only order what you need and spend less.
Next, here’s one last thing you should know before installing the app.
The main screen of the Phyn app indicates I have no alerts when the sensor goes off and there is an active alert in the notifications tab.
Phyn app main screen with active alerts happening on a Phyn Smart Water Sensor–as in it was beeping at me and in a pool of water while I saw this on my phone. Hmmm…no alerts? But notice the ‘2’ inside the red dot on the notification bell on the top right. That is for my sensor.
Here are the alerts in the active tab, having just clicked on the notifications bell in the previous photo.
Screen capture of the Phyn app having clicked on the “Water Detected” alert in the previous photo.
I also consulted with the support team and they explained the main screen is for Phyn Plus. We’ll see if this changes in the future to reflect the sensor data. It’s something to recall if you get confused at this screen.
As for how to set these up in the Phyn app, I invite you to check out my unboxing and installation video:
As for how fast the sensor detects water and tells Phyn Plus to shut off water to the house, here’s a video testing all different configurations of the sensors and the accessories.
I’ll be leaving these detectors Phyn sent me to review on two different battery options so I’ll be following up with long term reviews on these as the batteries go out.
PRICING / REVIEWS
○ Phyn Smart Water Sensors – https://www.phyn.com/smart-water-sensor/
○ Phyn Plus (10% off) – https://www.phyn.com/plus-smart-water-assistant/ enter discount code ‘Margaret10’ at checkout
○ Other pricing/reviews on Phyn Plus – https://amzn.to/2XUljro
A consolidated post on everything else I’ve shared on Phyn Plus:
The ULTIMATE Phyn Plus Resource [OUTSIDE of Phyn.com, of course]
