But what if the timer breaks? That’s my point. The faucet is required to be on meaning that the default state is water flowing. If the timer doesn’t have some spring loaded protection to move the internal valve to the off position during a hardware failure then water would be continuously flowing. Maybe at a residence it would only be a few hours before it was discovered but in some instances (like on vacation) it could be days that the water is being run.
I admit, it’s probably a very low possibility, but something I would have trouble trusting to a $40 piece of plastic.
And just to show you where I’m coming from, I once left a faucet on when watering plants. The sprayer on the hose was off so water wasn’t flowing. In the middle of the night the hose broke and water was flowing full force. Luckily, the faucet was right under my bedroom window that was open so it woke my wife and I up but it is an example that anything can break, you just have to know and mitigate the risk to your comfort level.
Anything can break, even metal pipes and spigots. And you are right, it is always about accepting risk. In my use case, mine is on a drip irrigation system. If it did fail, 5 drippers at a rate of 1/2 gph is pretty small if the valve failed to turn off.
And true story, I have had more issues with Copper pipe fittings failing in the last year than I have had issues with all my smart gadgets. And truth be told, the smart things water sensor saved me big time on the 3rd incident.
I got this almost 2 years ago and was not too happy with it mainly for the clock setting and battery consumption. Every time I need to change battery, it changed to 1pm and I cannot set the clock. After putting it back on Iris hub, now it can automatically set the clock after connection on either hub. So there much be a firmware update pushed through when it was on the Iris hub.