Hi,
At home I have several CO and flood sensors in the water heaters and furnace that Xfinity didn't carry as they deem almost everything as not compatible. So I was thinking, If could I use the Konnected board with these extra sensors and monitor them from SmartThings?
Thanks.
@Jansen
I've used a moisture sensor (3.3V-5V) as a leak detector for my water heater. I purchased mine from AliExpress.
-Greg
Anyone have the wiring setup for these?
@Larry,
Here is a diagram of the interconnect using an ESP8266 on a Konnect Alarm Board to the water sensor.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Greg
Greg - Are you using this with Home Assistant? The only option that exists in HA for the water sensor and Konnected is using the analog connection from the PCB. I get loads of random false positives using the analog, so curious if there is another way I can get this working reliably. I have tried (3) different water sensors - all behave the same way with random false positives.
@ Mark,
1. "Are you using this with Home Assistant?"
I've used both SmartThings & Konnected as one configuration and then migrated to Home Assistant & ESPHome as the second configuration. I've migrated most of my ESP8266 based nodes to HA and ESPHome.
2. "The only option that exists in HA for the water sensor and Konnected is using the analog connection from the PCB."
The moisture detector I've shown in the configuration in a previous post is using the Digital Output (DO) pin on the PCB and NOT the analog (AO) pin. I would recommend you use the DO method. I've been using the DO method successfully without any false positives for a couple of years using SmartThings and Konnected.
In the last 6 months I've been migrating my ESP8266 based nodes over to Home Assistant. However, under Home Assistant I'm not using the Konnect integration instead am using the ESPHome integration. This method has been stable without any false positives. If your leaning toward HA I would recommend looking into ESPhome
((ESPHome)
Hope this helps.
Greg
Not familiar with the ESP8266 setup, but will investigate. Based on your information, it sounds like using the digital input is the way to go to avoid the false positives. I can also see if we could request the Konnected integration with Home Assistant to have the ability to add the water sensor as a digital input (similar to the temp/humidity sensor). Thanks for the info!
Mark,
I've never had any issues with with the moisture sensor using the digital inputs. So I concur it's worth looking into. BTW, you can using that moisture sensor digital input with Konnected and Smartthings. Just define one of the available pins as an open/close sensor with Konnected. Works like a charm.
If your using Home Assistant then you certainly can use the Konnected integration or as and alternative use the very robust and flexible ESPHome integration. I have great respect for what Nate and the Konnected team have done but my automation requirements exceeded the Konnected and for that matter SmartThings capabilities so I'm now running my automation on HA using a RPI3B+. The advantage with this configuration is I'm running independent of any cloud services. Although you can certainly continue to use cloud services like SmartThings and Alexa if you wish. Anyway check out the Home Assistant community and ESPHome.
Greg
The issue is, the Konnected integration in Home Assistant doesn't support the digital input - only analog. There is no option to select digital, unfortunately. At the current time, I'm stuck with analog which doesn't work reliably due to all the false positives.
Mark,
I’m running the Konnected Integration on Home Assistant and it permits binary sensors, digital sensors and a switchable sensor. Either the binary or digital sensor type should support the digital output from the moisture sensor. I’ve attached a snapshot of the HA Konnected Integration Zone assigned. Note the three sensor type to select from. If you have questions let me know.
Greg
Hi Greg - Konnected supports digital sensors only for the (2) DHT temp/humidity boards. Not for the moisture sensor. If you select digital sensor on your screenshot, you will see what I mean. The only option to add the water sensor is via analog using the integration at the moment.
Hi Mark,
Perhaps this would help. I conducted a test to demonstrate the capability to use Home Assistant with the Konnected Integration and a Konnected Gen 1 Alarm Module and a Moisture Sensor. I started with a clean install of the latest Home Assistant loaded on the RPi3B+ added the Home Assistant Konnected Integration and defined Zone 1 as a binary sensor type moisture. After completing the software setup I completed the hardware setup of the Konnect Gen 1 Alarm Module and the Moisture Senor which is receiving +5vdc power from the Konnect Alarm Module and has the Digital Output (DO) pin connected to Zone 1.
I then conducted to tests.
1.) Initial Zone 1 Moisture Sensor status: Dry, applied moisture to the sensor and the state changed to wet.
2.) Initial Zone 1 Moisture Sensor status: Wet, removed moisture from sensor and state changed to dry.
I've included a single attached document to show the basic configuration in hopes it helps. If not please let me know and I'd be happy to assist however I can.
Cheers,
Greg G.
Thanks so much for the detail. Maybe I'm running into an issue with the board that is inline between the water sensor and Konnected. I don't get any lights on that board unless I connect it at 12v. That is the only thing I have not tried replacing, since it doesn't come with many of the water sensors out there.
I'll likely try getting another one of those boards and test it on another Konnected board to see if there are different results. That is the one thing that has been in play with all my tests that I have not swapped (since I don't have another one right now).
Thanks again! Will give this another try once I get some more hardware to rule out a hardware issue.
The moisture sensor PCB only requires 3.3 or 5vdc for power. However, looking at the data sheet for the Low Voltage Comparator chip (TI LM393) it has an input voltage range of 2 vdc min up to 36vdc max. Do you have the power for the moisture sensor PCB coming from the Konnect Alarm board? If not then the PCB power and Konnect power aren't sharing a common ground which could also inhibit it working properly. They need to share a common ground. As shown in my previous attachment the PCB is getting its dc power and ground connections from the Konnected Alarm panel +5VDC. I'd recommend this as the way to connect your moisture sensor. If not then as a minimum you need to tie the grounds between the Konnected Alarm board and Moisture sensor together.
You may also want to adjust the blue trim pot on the PCB to adjust the trip point for the Digital Output. Looking down on the pot turning clockwise will increase the sensitivity and of course counter-clockwise will decrease sensitivity. With the PCB powered and the Pwr LED illuminated adjust the pot clockwise and see if the DO LED lights up. If yes then the PCB should be Ok. (Note: be careful when adjusting the pot they aren't very robust and can be destroyed easily.
Attached find a couple of pictures of the PCB with power applied and the PWR LED is ON and the other is when the sensor detects the presence of moisture and the DO LED is ON.
Greatly appreciate all the details and pictures! Yes, originally I had the board connected using the 5v on the konnected board and ground exactly like your picture. The only difference was I had to splice both 5v and ground since I am also using a temp/humidity sensor on the same konnected board. I also tried using the 12v and ground (aux) since one of my water sensors requires 12v. Both technically worked (I had them connected analog), just lots of false positives at random times. I could never get the digital to work. Also, I never see the LED status when mine is plugged in - unless I have it connected 12v. When setup 5v, it is very dim to the point where you can hardly see it.
Maybe it doesn't like being on a shared 5v, but technically think it still should work properly on 12v. I need to get another konnected board to do more testing and another one of those PCBs.
Mark,
My approach when developing new devices with sensors other than those supported by Konnect has been to develop using NodeMCU boards with a ESP8266. They are relatively cheap to purchase and are available from a variety of sources (Amazon, AliExpress, Banggood). I've attached pics of these two items for your reference.
While the Konnected Integration under HA provides some flexibility I've found that using the ESPHome Integration with HA allows a greater variety of devices well beyond Binary switches, Temp/Humidity. Check out the ESPHome site at ESPHome.