Lots of people see similar things from time to time, it’s been an issue with the platform since it was first introduced. For example, from earlier this week:
As far as leak sensors that don’t require a hub, that would pretty much limit you to Wi-Fi, and that’s likely to mean not battery powered because Wi-Fi uses up a lot of battery life. So there aren’t going to be many candidates.
However, SwitchBot does have a new one that does have a linked services integration with SmartThings. Reviews are good, it looks good, I like SwitchBot devices, I just don’t know what the battery life is going to be because it’s so new. Typically lists for just under $20, or you can save a couple of bucks if you don’t need the sensing cable.
But I’d suggest instead first making sure you have a strong Zigbee mesh, because that can really improve reliability in a SmartThings system. (Or any Zigbee system actually.)
So what’s your Zigbee backbone look like? How many main powered Zigbee repeaters do you have and where are they located relative to the water sensors?
If you’ve never thought about that question before, start with post 11 in the following thread, read that, then go up to the top of the topic and read down. I’ll link directly to post 11.
A Guide to Wireless Range & Repeaters - #11 by JDRoberts
If you feel confident that you have a good mesh, but you still have problems and you’re not happy with the battery life on the switchbot sensor, You may need to consider either mains powered sensors (in which case we need to know what country you are in) or looking at ones that have a more reliable hub. Obviously hubitat is one possibility. But you can also get sensors that connect to their own hub and then are brought into SmartThings via either a bridge or linked services.
My personal experience, for example, is that aqara contact sensors are way more reliable when used in this way than when connected directly to a SmartThings hub. Unfortunately, while leak sensors are in the 1.2 version of matter, I don’t think they’ve been implemented yet. So you’d have to create your own proxy system, either using Alexa routines as an intermediary or something visible to matter, which can then act as proxy in both platforms. It’s doable, but it is more work. But you should get good battery life from these, and I would expect matter over bridge eventually, so then you could drop the proxy.
So here are my suggestions:
-
start by evaluating your Zigbee mesh, just in case that’s the problem.
-
if the mesh looks good, but SmartThings is still giving you issues, you can either go to battery power sensors connected to a different hub, mains powered sensors, or take a look at the SwitchBot Wi-Fi device.