How to check for water leaks & usage with the Flume 2 Water Monitor: Unboxing, Installation & Review
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
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Flume Water makes a water monitor that attaches to your water meter without tools. The Flume 2 monitor analyzes the number of gallons used and the flow rate. The app lets you set up various alerts to tell you if you have a leak, water running when you’re not home and if you are exceeding a pre-determined flow rate.
This is our second review of the Flume monitor, we reviewed the Flume 1 back in March of 2020, and now we are reviewing their second generation Flume 2. In the first review we attached the monitor to our irrigation system water meter, which now works with our B-Hyve Irrigation Controller to tell how much water each zone is using.
Now we are attaching the Flume 2 to our house water meter so we can monitor our home use. So we will have two Flumes watching over our water use.
And currently in Beta, Flume will be releasing an AI early next year for the Flume 2. The AI will let you know what water device is using how much water and when. We think this feature will make a major impact on not only controlling your water use, but help determine if your water system has a leak. And while our irrigation system is on a separate meter, yours may not be and we think this feature would make monitoring that even better.
The Flume 2 attaches to your water meter using elastic straps and sends the meter info to a Wi-Fi bridge in your house. The sensor is battery powered and expected to last up to two years before you need to replace the batteries, up to 4 years if you add an additional battery.
You can send a picture of your water meter to Flume support and they will tell you if it is supported before you buy the unit. Flume has an Alexa skill where you can check the status, usage and water budgets.
Watch the video to learn more about the Flume 2 Water Monitor: Smart Home Water Monitoring to Detect Leaks & Track Water Usage in Real Time.
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00:00 Intro
01:00 Unboxing
04:12 Check Compatibility
04:43 Setup in the app
06:07 Attaching the Monitor
06:44 Measuring Water Usage
08:55 Dashboard
10:06 Alerts and Notifications
12:33 An Irrigation Leak Detected
13:35 What’s Next
14:34 Wrap-up - Наука та технологія
Thanks for sharing! Great content!
You did a great job explaining the installation and setup process for Flume 2! Thank you for your help!
You're welcome. We have two now. So easy to use, and feel safer when we travel.
Nice & detailed product demonstration video. Thank you.
you are most welcome. glad it was helpful.
This is probably one of the most practical videos I've seen thx.
thank you. glad it helped.
Just stumbled on your channel looking up this meter. Very detailed. Keep it up 😀 subbed 👍
glad you like it thank you.
A Game Changer 💦🙋♂️ One leaky toilet tank cost $500 per month on Miami Beach, thank you team Flume2 🐠 🦋 i’m a fan 🏖
Thank you for the video about Flume water leak monitor. I hope more people will follow your lead and help each other with good did.
thank you Armen. appreciated.
Your videos are great. Now I know when there is a problem. This gadget is the best. I have a vacation property so this usage alert is worth it's weight in gold. I'm sold!
Awesome. And thank you for the complement.
Great help, sir! Keep up the good work
Thanks Jason, really appreciate the feedback.
Great review, you just added a new subscriber TY
thank you. really appreciate it.
FABULOUS! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
you’re most welcome.
What a great review! I love how you offer split screen with images of what you’re talking about. Fantastic, and thanks a lot.
I noticed another reviewer on UA-cam found that the flume 2 did not record steady leaks below .3 gallons per minute. Have you checked that?
Thank you.
Great review. Ordered.
thank you, awesome, lets us know what you think after you've used it a while.
Really needed to watch this. We had water leak coming from the main pipe to the house. Six months later during our landscaping project, the landscapers left the green box covers off for a few months exposing them to the elements and we had two separate days of our sprinklers on for 3 hours. Our neighbor just whatapped our group about the flume so I'm good to with this. Thank you for posting!
you are most welcome. glad it helped.
@@Appmyhome It sure did! I had another leak, a day after I installed it. Actually the leak was there I just didn’t know how much until I looked at the app. My landscape contractor showed me the geyser I had. Thanks again.
LOL, we've had those geysers. It's the ones buried in the bushes that are hard to spot. Having the flume really helps as you point out.
Great detailed video on components and installation. I installed a Flume 2 today guided by the smart phone app and had no problems setting up the bridge and installing the sensor on my water meter at the street curb. BTW, my local water utility (as part of a water savings campaign) is offering these at a large discount plus a $25 rebate after installation ending up in a total cost of less than $40 so I couldn't pass up on this cool tech for such a bargain.
thank you. great to hear your local utility is offering the program.
Curious how you like it now hat you've had it a while?
Do they have a website where I can order?
@@sandfox12 Quite happy especially with the smart monitoring and alerting capability. The app sent me an alert that triggered for water running 2 hours straight. I tracked it down to a toilet with a leaking flapper valve. This was in a rarely used guest bathroom so might have wasted water for days without the alert.
As flightsweep said it works great. We have two and the other day got an alert that we had a run away zone on our irrigation system. Fixed the zone leak and no longer wasting water. Let us know if you get one.
Just ordered mine . If I'm not using my irrigation because of weather can I modify my irrigation use when spring comes around
This device only monitors use. Can you explain more what you mean about modifying irrigation use?
Can these device be used for multi family or mobile home parks with one water meter?
Hi Curtis. Basically these attach to a water meter, so it reads that meter. So if everyone is on that meter you'll get the reading for everyone as a whole. You do need to check with Flume to ensure the particular meter is supported. It's easy just go to flume waters website and enter chat. They'll ask for a photo of the meter and confirm if it fits.
Can the flume system connect to anything that will shut the water valve
Inside the house , such as the yolink valve controller
Currently they do not integrate with any shutoff valves. according to their website: "Alexa utilizes "response only" skills meaning Alexa will be unable to notify you of a leak or other notifications." So even Alexa won't help. That said, you will get notifications on your phone and need to take actions yourself. We've found that adequate for our irrigation system. However, like you we like to be able to trigger our Zooz Titan water shutoff if a leak notification happened.
Do you need two I have a hyve water smart controller for grass. How would I get it to read that also or know the difference
we have our flume connected to a b-hyve XR. the XR supports the flume. we have two water meters, one just for irrigation. that said if you just have one meter, if you have the XR it should still track the usage since XR only measures when a zone is running. I suppose if you are running a shower at the same time it would see that too. you might try asking flume or b-hyve support about this for more clarity.
Good video! I just installed my Flume 2 and am seeing usage statistics immediately.
You might want to mention that, in the event the cell phone is connected to something other than wifi (5G, for instance), one must disconnect from that before the bridge will connect to the phone.
hi V. not sure I understand. the flume bridge connects to the WiFi and flume. we can access the flume from our phones anywhere in the world on 5g. can you provide more context? thanks.
@@Appmyhome Mark, what I found was that the bridge wouldn't/couldn't connect with my phone until I turned off my connection to the 5G network. I think that my phone was not responding even though it showed that the bridge was connected because the 5G network may have taken precedence. After connecting to the bridge, I went back and forth many times waiting for the app to let me proceed. Immediately after disconnecting from 5G it allowed me to proceed.
I've also passed this along to Flume. Thanks!
@@dvancamp6710 that is really weird. As for support, I find the Flume chat works pretty well. Hopefully they'll have a solution for you.
@@Appmyhome Yes, I'll wait to hear from Flume...and I have already had several chat sessions with their support. They are very, very responsive and knowledgeable!
So far my Flume has helped me identify that I had my irrigation system scheduling all screwed up so I'm very happy with the device!
Thanks for your great introduction as you are the one who convinced my to purchase the Flume 2!
@@dvancamp6710 Nice to hear we helped, thank you.
If I understood you, you installed a second Flume on the outside water valve to check for any leeks in your sprinkler system. Is that correct? If so, does this mean that a single Flume can not provide sufficient info to pinpoint a leak condition in your sprinkler system? (I ordered my first Flume system today. Know little about it.). TIA
Hi, we installed the Flume on the water meter that measures the water used in our irrigation system since our provider supplies two types of water. We also have one on the water meter for the house water. You may have just one meter. So the Flume only measures and reports on the water flow and usage as a whole for each system. If you have a leak on your irrigation system, flume can sort let you know because they have a feature that tells you if water is still flowing after a set time. To find the leak then you would shut off all water use and see if flume is seeing water flow. Then you have to yourself check to see if there are any zones not shutting off. We do that by turning off each valve one by one to see if the flow stops. Then you will know which zone is having the leak. Of course then you can clean or replace the bad sprinkler valve.
Have they released the promised device/fixture usage feature as promised?
Hi CJ, we haven't seen it yet though they just released an update to their firmware today supporting a new service called Insights. Maybe it will be part of that.
I've suspected a phantom leak(s) somewhere, and this looks like a great way to test the macro system and various known water eaters. Can the Flume app let you print via wifi your daily usage graph or table? Wouldn't be a deal breaker, but that would be extremely helpful. Thx
Turns out Flume not only has an iOS/Android app, but you can log into your Flume from a browser. And the browser version has excellent graphs. Since it's browser based you can therefore print the graphs.
Thank you. I went ahead and ordered it. I have an older Neptune meter, so I hope it works. If not, they said to return it. I'll update when I get it.
you're welcome. looking forward to hearing how it went.
@@Appmyhome Hey 👋 this monitor is fantastic! We've got an older Neptune Trident meter (Model 8) not the new variety. So Flume was able to get it calibrated remotely while I was in a chat session after the first day. The monitor showed me that it was our irrigation system that was driving our high numbers. I won't go into the details, but I think we will see some good changes in our next bill and substantive changes inn he ond after that. Our water utility bills every other month.
I'm so glad that we do not have the irrigation leak that I had suspected.
Again, thanks so much for your 📹. That was a great help.
@@melotone3305 You are most welcome, Glad it helped.
As you saw their support via chat is excellent. I think one of the best chat helps around frankly.
Did any of these features go under a paywall? Or is there a subscription service you have to subscribe to?
You'd need to read their current product description as they did add a subscription service. So some things are under the subscription and others not. You don't need to subscribe though unless those features they now list as Flume Insight are desired. We turned on the subscription recently to check out those features, they seem to be handy, especially the ability to have custom alerts. Here is their feature chart: flumewater.com/insight/?_ga=2.262208908.1415436023.1648518116-386509212.1648518116
I just got a flume one here July, now I need there is added benefit to flume 2? Help! I am sure there are others that have this same upsetting update. :( Regardless thanks for breaking this down and helping me understand the value between the both...no one likes to be left behind regardless of adoption.
We now have both monitors (got flume 1 in March) and as of today there doesn't appear to be any major difference other than the range and ability for a second battery. The future AI might be a different issue if it only works with Flume 2. We are on their AI beta and it appears to be enabled on both models, so if that's the case when they launch it we may be fine.
@@Appmyhome Thanks so much for the break down and reply. Exactly what I needed to know! A second battery would be ideal, but frankly I can't imagine when this battery will die. haha I appreciate the response!
great review, but how accurate is it?
pretty accurate. you’re not going to measure ounces though:). key is it good at letting you know how much and when water is used. and alerts like when you set it to warn if any water is used (great for vacations) or you exceed so much over time. their ai was a getting better at determining which appliance is using how much water.
How close does the bridge have to be to the monitor. In other words what is the range of the monitor..
Our flumes are in the ground in front of the house. One is around 30 ft from the bridge. The other around 35. Bridge is a room in front of the house so just one wall to penetrate.
Wondering about return policy. My meter is about 50 yards down the hill, and there's a tree and metal fence in the line-of-sight distance to the wi-fi. Flume may well not work under these conditions.
Flume 2 has a pretty good range. I’d check with them on the return policy just to be sure.
Is this monitor subject to theft if attached to meters in public spaces like the street curb?
it is only held in place by the rubber band.
Is there a device that works with water wells in rural areas?
Hi Bobby, I think it depends on what you want to measure. The Flume listens to the internal spinning magnet in the water meter. We also have a device called Streamlabs installed. It "listens" to the water flowing thru your water line. I would think that would work for your application. We filmed them at CES in 2019, check it out. ua-cam.com/video/F3HaHZrnA68/v-deo.html
I wish to buy a second battery pack. How do I do this?
How long does it take to get an answer?
hi William. best way is to contact their chat. they will assist with that. flumewater.com/ should see the chat in the lower right corner.
if they are online they answer fast. the chat should indicate if they are available. I’d also recommend leaving a message in the chat and expect they will respond. chat support has been a plus with them.
My water meter is located in a covered pit (underground) and it's
usually filled up with dirt/water/mud... will this likely ruin/destroy
the flume system?
The unit seems to have a good waterproof seal. We also have it in the ground and I’d bet it takes on water when it rains. This said we haven’t looked in the hole to see if filled with water. I think if the seal holds the only issue you might have is the unit reporting results to the base station.
dig out all the dirt, pack it with pea gravel.
My question would be would the water company be able to not allow you to use it on their water meter since the meter belongs to the water company
Hi Michael, the device attaches with rubber bands, ie nothing is done to the meter. The company also has programs with many water districts to use this. If you are concerned though would be best to ask yours.
@@Appmyhome My utility informed me that the Flume device and any other device attached to the meter or placed in their vault is "tampering". I've paid them $8,000 for water & sewer in the past 18mo due to large areas to irrigate and likely some leaks, which I hope to use the Flume to track down. Plan B is install my own meter upstream.
@@mattshannahan8835 Would be good to call Flume, maybe they can help. The other thing is you can get the Streamlabs device which attaches to your water pipe inside the house, it does a similar thing.You can get it here: #ad amzn.to/3JarC2p or on the Streamlabs Water web site. Let us know how it goes.Keep in mind the Streamlabs does go on the pipe, so not sure how your irrigation line is attached, but it would need to be placed before it. I don't think the Streamlabs device is water proof.
What is the battery? It's not standard battery size or is it a custom battery? is it a rechargeable or alkaline? What's the volts on the battery
if I recall it is a special battery they sell. price wasn’t bad. you can put two inside. we do.
@@Appmyhome Would you mind posting a picture of the battery so we can read all the battery specs? Most batteries sizes are available from any battery retailer -- even odd sizes. It cost money to tool up for a different size so I doubt they had a custom battery. I'm wondering the voltage, and thus if it can be swapped out with a rechargeable. I hate relying on stuff that has proprietary equipment that can only be bought through one company and when the company goes out of business, so does your ability to keep using the product. That is why most products become useless because of the battery. I'm guessing it is an off the shelf battery that I can get at my local battery store. It looks like it could be a sealed gel cell which are rechargeable.
@@Appmyhome I looked up and found that the Flume 1 used a non-rechargeable Lithium Metal battery (similar to an one-time use alkaline battery). Lithium battery packs are multiples of 3.7 volt nominal up to 4.2 volt max. That is the same as the Lithium Ion batteries which are rechargeable. I'm taking a guess that you can replace it with a rechargeable lithium ion battery and not have to keep buying batteries every 2 years. It would cost pennies to recharge it. I'm guessing if you live in a house and get a Flume, you are intending to live in a house for many decades, so it makes sense to use a rechargeable.
@@awesomedee5421 we just ordered two new batteries from Flume (Our Flume 2 takes 2). Something like $15 each. We used to have the Flume 1 (technically still do but replaced it with the new Flume 2). Getting batteries for that was easy but they didn't last as long. Plus not sure if the rechargeable would last as long, which would mean for us, opening up the box in the lawn more often. If I remember when they arrive I'll post a photo. Feel free to remind us, LOL.
Hi Dee, just posted a short on replacing the batteries in the Flume. Take a look!
It doesn't appear that the Flume pin points where the leak is. It's very binary, you have a leak (somewhere) or your don't. Is that correct? You could have a very small leak in your lawn irrigation system and it would take forever to find it. Right? It also doesn't pinpoint how or where you are using the water. For example if you're washing dishes, taking a shower, watering the lawn, flushing the toilet, etc... It simply tells you that you're using water, somewhere. Is that Correct? It appears to me that the real value is in detecting a burst pipe while you're away from home and sending you an alert or something of that nature. In terms of determining how you're using water, where your greatest usage is, it's pretty useless. Right? If I want to modify my water usage by determining where my greatest usage is, this won't help. Correct? Is there something on the market that would provide whole home info, by major source point (e.g. clothes washer, dish washer, shower, toilet, kitchen sink, outdoor irrigation system, etc.. as well as leak detection)? I realize this could be very expensive and very difficult to get this info, but it would be the most useful in terms of changing water usage habits.
They do have an AI that breaks down usage by device. It’s not perfect but good enough to know which appliance is using how much water.
As for leaks it doesn’t know where the leak is. That’s left up to you of course. But at least you know.
We have two of these because we have a separate meter for irrigation water. So we know it’s our irrigation that is leaking. Once you know that you can at least figure out which zone is leaking. Then it’s time to hunt for the issue. Having the Bhyve XR really helps here since first it knows the zone and how much water it is using plus you can turn the zone on and off to see if you’ve fixed it without running back to the controller.
The other device to get is a water shutoff for the home water. So as your example if you are away and you get an alert you can minimize water damage.
There are other devices like this that do similar for the house water including determining what is leaking and the ability to turn off the water automatically. For example the Moen Flow. In this case though you would put in inline with the main water line, ie you need a plumber to install.
Flo is better rebates !
Hi Al, these are two different products. The flume installs on the water meter with a rubber band and only monitors usage. The Flo requires a plumber to install on your homes water line (ie cutting pipe) and not only monitors the water Flo but can shut off the water as well. Flo is much more expensive for obvious reasons. Both look like good products to us.
wont detect small leaks
there are several alert types including one that will let you know if water is running a long time. and another if any runs you set when not hone. as for how small a leak it will detect you would need to ask flume. their support is very good.
Flume
do you have one?
Sonoff water leak sensor is way cheaper and it does pretty much the same thing...
You know it's interesting. We have the Guardian Water Leak Detection System which not only detects water with those floor sensors but will shutoff the water. However, they won't tell you if a leak is in the wall or underground. We have two water meters, one for the irrigation system and another for the house. We these devices we can know if any drop of water is happening when we don't expect it, like we showed in the video. So between these systems we think we have pretty good coverage. The other thing that this system provides is the linkage to our B-hyve irrigation controller to tell us how much water we use on each zone which has helped us adjust the amount of water we use. Certainly this water monitoring and protection area is complex depending on what you want to accomplish.
@@Appmyhome i agree but for the most part the out of the box units are way overpriced and very low integration i. To other systems. I’ve done the irrigation system with monitoring with a 4ch R2 sonoff unit and a ac/ac power-supply with some ac solenoid valves and a couple sensors, totaled at about 40 bucks for 6 zones.
@@tunintunin3417 very cool on your setup. We usually review off the shelf solutions, but sometimes I get to play with more complex setup of things. Just a matter of finding time. And yes, more integrations with Flume and frankly B-hyve will be nice. Also Guardian, because right now there is no way to tie these together.
This is such a scam doesn't tell you where the leak is the meter itself tells you if you have a leak turn everything off and if the flow indicator moves either slow or fast that determines the size of leak.
The Flume actually monitors what your water meter shows. so just like the water meter it will tell you if water is flowing or not and how much in gallons. Plus you can get alerts if the water is flowing, which is handy if you are not home, something your standard water meter can't do. It also keeps track of the date and time. It has an AI that tries to figure out what appliance is using how much water, the AI isn.t perfect but good enough to see if you are taking too long a shower. Oh and if your water meter is in the ground like ours, you don't need to bend down on your knees and put the cover and clean off the dirt to read it:) And as we show, installation is quite easy, no tools required.
@AppMyHome you can check your bill on the back to see how many gallons your using that's how they bill you as far as me not being home whenever I leave out of town I just turn my water off at the shutoff if I get a high bill I can ask them to reread it to make sure the meter reader didn't make a mistake but to each their own.
@@Dude-6969I see why this may not be useful to you, but I don't see why you think it's a scam. It does what it says.
Leak detection and stats are very useful. It helps you understand how you consume water and make changes.
Keep in mind this is about you being able to monitor things on the finer scale, ie hourly if you want. Plus knowing if you may have a leak, or running down irrigation issues and so forth, waiting for the water company just isn't fast enough. of course as for leaking while not home, turning off the house water certainly will work. We actually have the flume and an automated water shutoff. So if you don't like having to remember to shut off the water before you go, the automated shutoff would be handy.
So anyone could just open that thing up and steal my water monitor?
That is correct. Of course they could take your water meter too. If you happen to have your water meter inside the house of course that would be a bit harder. You see these water meter boxes in the front lawns in California. Suspect other locations use this method as well.
Don't see any benefit of this device
Hi Michael. One benefit is if you are not home and water starts leaking, or you left water running you can set an alert to let you know. Imagine if you are away on vacation and a toilet starts running, or a pipe breaks in the wall. You can then take action. We also use this to tell if our irrigation valves are running when they are not supposed to.
@@Appmyhome Honestly if I get a major house leak, I will have my insurance pay for it and renovate my house
@@001looker Yeah, and you’ll end up paying a deductible that is higher than the device. I used to be a claims adjuster and insurance always tries to avoid paying out.
I understand. I don’t wear a seatbelt when I drive. I have insurance, and if I’m in an accident my injuries will be covered.
@@deeznutz5844 sure it's $1000 and I will get 20k + when I am done with renovation