The world of smart home plumbing is still relatively small, but the benefits of hooking up your home's pipes with sensors can save you loads on repairs by catching leaks early. Managing your water usage can be vital if you're living in a drought-prone area, while smart water heating can save a few bucks on your monthly bills, too. Let's take a look at some of the smart home water management system types available, and what they can do for you.
Smart leak sensors
Water leaks account for 10,000 gallons of lost water each year per home. About 10% of homes leak more than 90 gallons a day, adding up to a whopping one trillion gallons of leaked water nationwide each year. It's a big problem, but highly fixable. For starters, it's easy to get into smart leak sensors and use them in your home. There are a couple of ways these can work.
Last summer, we first tipped you off to the Roost Smart Water and Freeze Detector, a smart-home device that helps you (and the planet) save water and money. And now, at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Roost has announced that its eco-friendly device is finally available for pre-order. If you head over to GetRoost.com, you’ll be able to place a request for one of these detectors for $50. And given that Roost claims this gadget could help save homeowners and insurance companies more than $8 billion a year in potential water losses and related claims payments, that price sounds like quite a bargain.
While Roost has been in the smart-home space for some time (with its Smart Battery and Smart Smoke Alarms, both meant to protect you from fires), the company is expanding its product offerings and casting a wide net when it comes to its Wi-Fi-enabled product line.
The Roost Smart Water and Freeze Detector is a prime example. It boasts features like a water-leak sensor that sends you a notification via its companion smart home app whenever you’ve sprung a leak; a temperature sensor; and a humidity sensor. Customers can use the Roost app to set temperature and humidity ranges, and you can also invite friends and family members to serve as co-monitors if you’re expecting to be out of your home for a while. Ultimately, Roost seeks to protect homeowners from water damage due to leaks from broken pipes and appliances; frozen pipe water damage; mold and mildew damage caused by high humidity conditions; and inefficient energy use attributed to abnormal indoor temperatures.
“We are excited to introduce the Roost Smart Water and Freeze Detector, and expand our ability to offer consumers safer and smarter homes,” said Roel Peeters, Roost CEO and co-founder, back in June. “Our unique technology delivers consumers tangible solutions that are simple to install and at affordable costs. Roost provides essential alerts and notifications that enable consumers to take faster action when it comes to home emergencies, saving the trouble and cost of repair work or major home loss. With the new Roost Smart Water and Freeze Detector, Roost now provides the ability to manage the all-too-common water leak or freezing pipes situation that we’ve all experienced in our homes at some point.”