I'm a Dad. When I run a bath I hang around waiting for it to run. Usually I grab my guitar or my Rubik's cube and play around for a bit. Most of the time I lose track of time and find my bath is "overflowing" by the time I realise I should still be keeping an eye on it.
My kids are the same, usually they don't wanna bath, they're playing games or something.
So I got a couple of Tuya water leak sensors off Ali for £4 each, one for each bath.
I installed mine yesterday on the back of a basket that we keep bath things in hanging from the shower. I've run the wire down, around the taps and a dab of glue on the back of the sensor to stick it just below the overflow.
Now when my bath water touches it, all my bedroom, kitchen and front room lights will flash for a second and my GH speakers will announce that my bath is run.
I plan to do the same with my kids' bath, I just need to find somewhere to put the sensor.
It's an idea I've had for ages. Next idea is to have one placed in the downpipe from my guttering so that I get notified when it's raining, saving my washing from getting wet. We live in the UK so rain is pretty common.
Any other creative uses for normal sensors? Share them here for the community.
Just a consideration on this, but would they not also use up more battery as a "dry" sensor (assuming they use batteries as the ones I have do).
For leaks, the sensor activates when water bridges the poles, which should be a rare thing. For dry, you'd be in a constant state of activation - which I presume requires passing a current through the fluid between poles - and thus consume more battery.
It activates when it's wet, "dry" is the off state.
That was a concern for me, yeah, but the reality is that I change the batteries once a year, maybe? I can't remember the last time I did it, over a year. The amount of current that goes through is very small and they only need to send current through for less than a millisecond maybe once a second. So, super low current that's only active, maybe 0.01% of the time