Utilitech Flood Sensor and Everspring Flood Sensor Defective Batch

Just a note for folks, we’ve been experimenting this these brands of sensors and found a defect in the electronics of a particular manufacturing batch.

The batch of devices manufactured during 1215 have defective electronics and will NOT work properly. They will either fail to register a wet signal or fail to return to a dry signal. We have tried about 7 different devices from this batch and ALL of them have failed in the exact same way. The signal gets stuck either in “wet” or “dry” mode.

So if you’re planning on buying these sensors (which are REALLY good otherwise and have EXCELLENT battery life), do AVOID the 1215 batch. Can confirm that the 0615 batch works fine.

The manufacturing batch number is given just above the bar code on the packaging.

I wanted to throw in my .02 on these too. I bought 3 of the Lowes Iris water sensors and 1 of these Utiitech Flood Sensors for the water heater in the garage. The Utilitech was bar far the most difficult to pair and refused until I rebooted the hub then it paired quickly and correctly.Aside from that I read this thread before going to my local Lowes and was going to avoid the 1215 batches and was glad to see none there. All I had were a single 1214 and multiple 0915 batches. I went with a 0915 batch and it works just fine. After pairing eventually I tested the sensor in a plate of water barely deep enough to cover the bottom and it registered wet quickly (not at fast as the Lowes one surprisingly) and when removed it registered dry. I did this 4 times and it worked as expected each time so as far as I’m concerned the 0915 batch is just fine.

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Just a note this is a ST hub firmware issue and not a device issue. It’s difficult to pair a lot of devices with the hub until you reboot the hub. Generally it’s a good idea to reboot the hub and repair the z-wave network once a month, it keep a strong z-wave network. If ever in doubt (faced issues with locks, thermostat, door sensors, light switches and more) just reboot the hub. Glad to know this post was helpful.

I was just noticing that my Everspring flood sensor under my kitchen sink has NEVER returned to DRY status after I tested it out on my time off over the holidays (aka about 3 months ago now). I’ll have to check on the batch date when I get home, maybe @TheSmartestHouse will replace them if they happen to be from this bad batch.

@RBoy Do you know if there are other batches out there besides 0615 and 1215? Did they just have a couple manufacturing runs, or I wonder if they are they still being newly produced?

Sure, we’ll service the product if it’s within the warranty period regardless of the batch it’s from if it doesn’t work well. Just send us your order number and describe the problem to initiate the process: https://www.thesmartesthouse.com/pages/contact-us