Best hard wired smoke / CO alarm & monitoring for Sump Pump

Devices & Integrations Connected Things
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I’ve been slowly getting my SmartThings setup going at home [up to around 50 connected devices now] and there are two gaps left that I would like to fill:

  1. I have 3 existing smoke alarms, I’d like to get alerts when they go off. I found this thread [SmartThings in Canada -- integration with hardwired smoke alarm/sensor] discussing adding a relay, but I’m wondering if there are any standard Smart Smoke + CO Alarms I can add to the mix that are also hardwired. I know that if one of my non-smart alarms goes off, they all go off, so I’m assuming if I just add one smart smoke + co alarm, that i’ll also get a trigger no matter where it started [can anyone confirm this?].

  2. For those of us with Sump Pumps, how do you monitor them? I have a water sensor sitting on top of it so if it fails for a really long time I’ll find out, but ideally I’d like to find out even sooner. I was thinking of attaching one to the interior of the sump pump but it gets pretty wet in there [humid] and I suspect the leak sensor would trigger false alarms fairly often. I’m going to experiment, but I suspect this is a solved problem?

Thanks!

2

A couple of thoughts:

If you decide to use a relay and contract sensor to connect your hard wired alarms, here is a great DTH:

There is also the option to use a sound sensor to detect alerts:

For the sump pump you may want to look at this:
https://www.amazon.com/Aeotec-Aeon-Labs-DSB45-Sensor/dp/B00H3TJ3P4/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1495032668&sr=1-1&keywords=aeon+water+sensor
You can put the sensor at the same level where your sump pump starts. This way you would get an alert every time. If you put it slightly higher, you would get alerts only when the sump pump fails.

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Thanks, these are great links. And that DSB45 water sensor looks perfect for the sump pump, thank you! 100% buying one right now.

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4

Halo makes Smoke/CO detectors that are Zigbee so work with ST. However, they the ST notification is not triggered if smoke is detected elsewhere in the house. Only if it is deteced on the Halo detector.

The hardwired “interconnect” functionality is still intact where it will alarm all of the smoke detectors in the house so that is working.

You can find Halo here: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/halo-smart-labs-halo-wired-smoke-and-carbon-monoxide-alarm-with-weather-alerts/5665104.p?skuId=5665104

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I too want to monitor my sump pump. In particular, I want to know every time it runs. What’s the best way to do that? I’ve tried using a vibration sensor on the PVC pipe attached to the pump which shakes a bit when it runs, but its not enough vibration to trigger the sensor usually. Maybe a sensor which monitors how much current the pump is drawing, which would spike each time it runs?

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Before smartthings I had an Arduino monitoring my sump, I have yet to get that integrated into ST. For a sensor…this is convoluted but worked… My sump has/had a float switch that the pump plugs into. I put a 'outlet splitter" on that so every time the float triggered the pump to run, a small light also turned on. Then a light sensor on the Arduino would detect and track the sump. I played around with different parameters and way to alert me when unusual condition occurred (cycles per hour, pump stuck on for 60 seconds, pump has not run for X hours).

I haven’t had time to get this working with a smart app.

Sensing the pump could be done other ways…
-vibration as noted above
-HEM if you happen to have a dedicated circuit for your pump (should work.with any pump)
-door contact sensor hooked to a 120VAC relay(would require float switch and splitter similar to my light sensor)
-contact sensor and flioat switch in the pit at different level that would go on off when pump run

7

Our new smart app does alert for interconnect and has been submitted to ST for release. Hopefully will be released soon.

~Josh

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8

My whole hose has hard wired brk smoke/co detectors. Can I just add a halo detector to that network and receive alarms through Smartthings if any of my detectors sends an alarm?

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You could use e.g. a aeon relay with power monitoring and get an alert every time the power usage increases. However, I would not trust any Smartthings controlled switch that may potentially disable my sump pump.

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Halo & Halo+ units are only approved to interconnect with other Halo products. Each company’s smoke and CO alarms use proprietary detection algorithms and interfaces. And therefore there’s no industry standard. If alarms from different companies are connected together, they may not warn you properly in an emergency.

While we cannot guarantee it to work for your third-party smoke detectors, we have added the feature for a user to receive push notifications, via Halo App, if Halo and Halo+ detect an alarm via the Interconnect wire. Also, as long your Halo is connected via the red interconnect wire, you should not have an issue with the interconnect affecting the integration of SmartThings. Please keep in mind a self-test trigger from the third-party alarms might be a different signal than from a real smoke event. Many of our customers have reported Halo & Halo+ triggered during smoke events from other alarms and vice versa. We cannot stress how important it is for you to test and ensure your interconnect system is working properly. For more information about our Interconnect: http://bit.ly/2n3FlyT

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11

New community member interested in monitoring my sump pump. Will explore the H2O sensor as an option, but getting pump ON/pump OFF signals would provide a better peace-of-mind solution. Question: Is there a ST device that (when placed between my existing AC outlet and my three-pronged sump-pump electrical plug) could simply monitor AC current flow from that AC outlet to the pump (e.g., AC current flow start > pump ON signal sent > AC current flow stop > pump OFF signal sent)?

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