Nothing in my life brings more stress than worrying about water leaks. Especially during the coldest part of winter, thinking about freezing pipes bursting, etc, it somewhat keeps me up at night. I have written before about how much I rely on water leak sensors to ensure I don’t have leaks that I’m unaware of.
While “puck” style sensors are awesome for slipping under a sink, they have a fatal flaw: water has to touch that specific 1-inch spot to trigger an alert. If the leak starts six inches to the left, you might not know until your floorboards are already warping. This week, I am taking a look at the new Shelly Flood Gen4 sensor.
HomeKit Weekly is a series focused on smart home accessories, automation tips and tricks, and everything to do with Apple’s smart home framework.
One cable to rule them all
The big feature here is the sensing cable. Like I said, the pucks are great for watching a certain spot, but the cables allow you to cover a bigger area. This is a game-changer for appliances like washing machines, dishwashers, or water heaters. You can wrap the cable around the entire base of whatever appliance you want to monitor. If water touches any part of that cable, the alarm goes off. It effectively creates a “tripwire” for water. I really like this approach overall.
If you have a large basement or a tricky utility closet, you can even daisy-chain cables to extend coverage. However, I think the standard 6-foot cable will be fine for most use cases. Shelly has long been a favorite among the Home Assistant crowd for its reliable Wi-Fi relays, but they can be challenging to integrate into HomeKit without running a bridge server.
The new Gen4 model changes that because it is now Matter native. It has a QR code in the box, and once I popped in the AA batteries, it onboarded within a few seconds. It exposes the leak sensor to HomeKit, allowing you to receive critical alerts on your iPhone or Apple Watch the moment water is detected. Shelly says the batteries are rated to last two years.
One tip from my installation: the leak cable comes coiled in the box and can be a bit “springy” when you first unroll it. You might need to use a few small cable clips or some painters’ tape to hold it flat against the floor for the first few weeks until it stretches out and lays flat. The cable being this tight, in my opinion, is a great sign for build quality
Wrap up on the Shelly Flood Gen4
If you have a vacation home, a basement, or just a laundry room where a leak could go unnoticed for days, the Shelly Flood Gen4 is a fantastic pickup to start your year. Within the Shelly app, there is an “Economic” alarm mode for long-term monitoring to conserve battery, while the “Intense” mode provides immediate feedback. Especially for somewhere you don’t visit regularly (think rentals, etc), the economic mode is great.
You can buy the new Shelly Flood Gen4 from Amazon or directly from Shelly
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