I have had the Flume 2 smart water monitor on my watch list for the past year. Its regular price is $250 but it sometimes drops to $200. On Prime Day it dropped to $150 so I pulled the trigger. The device basically monitors your water usage so you can see where and when you are using water. It is kind of like the Sense Energy monitor but not quite as slick. The big selling point of the product is that it can detect leaks, which will allow the product to easily pay for itself if you can avoid major damage or save some money on your water bill if you have a leak that you did not know about as was the case with me (more on that later).
The product consists of the monitor itself as well as a bridge that needs to be plugged in within the line of sight of the monitor. It also comes with a tool for removing water meter covers and gloves as apparently some water meters are outside and installation can get messy. My water meter is in my basement so installation was very easy. I downloaded the app, took a picture of the face of my meter to check for compatibility, plugged in the bridge, adjusted the rubber straps on the monitor, and strapped it to my meter. The app then asked me to run the water while it calibrates and about 30 seconds later I was up and running. The app almost immediately notified me that there was a leak detected and was losing .04 gallons a minute. I figured the most likely culprit is my sprinkler system which I confirmed by turning off the water to my sprinkler and Flume was no longer detecting a leak. So now my question is how much is this leak costing me. So .04 gallons a minute is about 2.5 gallons an hour and 75 gallons a month. I pay $6.85 for 1,000 gallons of water so the leak will consume 1,000 gallons in a little over a year so it is not costing me much. I turn the sprinkler system off for the winter so the leak will take 2 years to get to 100 gallons. I will eventually get it fixed but I am in no big rush to have my lawn torn up for a small leak. The good news is I know it is there and can continue to monitor it in case it gets worse.
I am a data guy, I just love data, reports charts, and analytics. So I was really looking forward to what I could see about my water usage. Flume uses AI to detect what appliances are using water and can break down usage between indoor and outdoor usage. The reports themselves are OK. Nothing like the real-time interface that Sense provides. There is some customizations in there as well such as monthly budget which I haven't had a change to play with yet. Below are a couple screenshots from the mobile app. The same data is available by logging into the web app.
When I first started looking at Flume they were charging a monthly fee for access to some of the data that you can see now for free. I don't think I would pay for this data even if it was only a couple bucks a month. I do get a bit concerned about devices like this that are only making money on the price of the hardware. If they go under I am left with a useless device but it was pretty cheap so a risk I am willing to take.
A couple minor aggravations with the product. First, I get a notification every night that Flume has detected a leak in my system, not a huge deal just a bit of an annoyance. Second, when my sprinkler runs I get a notification of a high flow rate. My Rachio notifies me when the sprinkler is running I don't need Flume to do it as well. Would be nice if there was some integration between Flume and Rachio but none that I can see at this point. Lastly, there is nowhere in Flume that I could find where I could enter my water rate. Would be nice to see how much it is costing to run my sprinkler or take a shower. I did forward this suggestion to Flume for future functionality so we will see,
Overall, for the price I paid, I think Flume is a pretty cool product. It immediately detected a leak in my sprinkler system which I can now continuously monitor in case it gets worse. I also now can see if any major leaks or issues are occurring before they cause major damage to my home.
