Yolink Water Sensor

This past winter I had a couple issues with water leaks in my basement.  First my hot water heater pressure relief valve was intermittently releasing water, then a sink had a loose connection that was leaking water and during an ice storm water was backing up against my foundation and coming into the house.  My basement also serves and an in-law apartment and is finished so any floods would be costly and extremely inconvenient.

So I decided it was time to invest in some type of leak detector.  As I did my research I found that I had a choice of smart leak detectors or dumb leak detectors.  The dumb detectors basically just sound an alarm when they detect water.  This wouldn't do me any good if I am away from home or the leak is in some corner of the basement where I couldn't hear it.

I decide to look at the smart leak detectors and was surprised by the lack of products in this category.  Moen makes a leak detector that is meant to be paired with their water monitor but its cost was about double what the other options were.  I found a coupe online reviews for the Yolink water sensor.  It was reviewed really well, expandable and fairly inexpensive.  The only drawback that I could see was it needed its own hub and I was really not that excited to add yet another hub to my smart home but having a seemingly sharp increase in leak issues in my home I needed a solution so I pulled the trigger.

Yolink sells the system in a few different configurations based on your needs.  I went with the hub and four sensors.  But you can buy extra leak detectors in one or three packs.  Setup was very easy.  The app was intuitive and easy to add the hub and sensors.  A few days after installing we had another ice storm and the app notified me that water was detected in my basement.  I was able to resolve the issue before any damage was done, so the product basically paid for itself and then some.

I like that for under $20 I can add an additional sensor if I have an area I am concerned about.  If you have a large home you don't need to worry about range with this product.  It uses a wireless technology called LoRa (long range) and they claim a quarter mile range.  This would be great for a barn or detached garage.  They also claim a 2 to 10 year battery life.   I cannot confirm any of this but I have not had any range issues and all of my sensors are still showing 100%.

Yolink also sells other products to pair with their hub such as motion sensors, door sensors, temperature and humidity sensors and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.  They seem to always be adding new products as well so I am sure I will me adding more components at some point.