Orbit 71005 B-hyve Smart Flood Sensor - WiFi Water Leak Detector (5-Pack)

Easy setup. One for A/C pan, one for water heater pan, one for washing machine

So in spite of the negative reviews, predominantly on battery life, I opted to give these a try. The concept after all is great, right?! And with those reviews already out there, one would think it’d be a real no-brainer for B-hyve to start with batteries that are at 100%! Seriously. I JUST plugged these things in and I have two that state they are at 100% battery life. The other three are at 80%, 65%, and a depressing 32%! I initially thought that was some pretty pathetic QC, and a week later two of them read 100%, with the others at 89%, 56% and 50%. Strange because in between those readings, the battery life was all over the place, with four of the five batteries reading 100% on day two. In short… the battery readouts are suspect and it’s probably good to have backups ready. Temperature readouts appear to be quite accurate. Water alerts were near instant once the level reached about 1/4” of water. I tested it in a dish. It was non responsive to a small puddle, but once there was accumulation, the device sent notification via the app. I received a follow up notice a few minutes after removing the device from the water that “the water had receded.” Connectivity with the Wi-Fi Hub was also a commonly noted problem area in reviews. I have had some problems with it myself and will get notifications of lost signals periodically for no apparent reason. Sometimes they’ll “magically” reconnect on their own. (I have a relatively small house at just under 2500 ft2.) To minimize issues, I have moved the hub to what is nearly the geographic center of the house meaning no sensor is more than 50-60’ from the hub and that helped a bit. But, I had to reposition sensors: the bar sink sensor was moved to the front of the cabinet (bottles interfered with the signal), the bathroom sensors were moved from behind the toilets to the sides (porcelain restricts the signal). That said, I’m still receiving occasional notices and trying to perfect the placement without having a second hub in my relatively small house. Gripes on battery life, connectivity and general QC aside, the product set-up is relatively easy. The information provided is readily accessible via the app. I’m going to stick this out with the thought that the benefits potentially outweigh the imperfections . I really don’t think it would be difficult to turn this into a truly great tool. I hope B-Hyve is on it. Enhance the connectivity and find out why the battery life seems to hop around so frequently and this product quickly becomes a five star product.

I have many of these sensors installed in our home and vacation home. For moisture sensing, I have them placed under refrigerators, washing machines, sinks, etc. Since the devices also report temperature, I also have sensors installed in a crawl space and garage to monitor winter temps and in the attic to measure high temps at our home in Arizona. If installed relatively close to the hub, the batteries can last two years; worst case, don't count on more than 10-12 months. I have noticed that the devices continue to function for a few more months after you get warnings that the battery level has fallen to 20%. The missing star is only because it is very difficult to change the batteries.

Awesome - saved us by notifying of an unseen leak on multiple occasions. LOVE this product! Easy to configure and install and very useful. Only minor complaint is - if you have a LARGE house - you may need a second wifi-hub for connectivity of all of the scattered about sensor units. not a big deal - just an awareness.

Just purchased, batteries it came with are already dead basically, just 1 day after purchase. Customer service is ... abysmal, and thats being kind about it.

Batteries only lasted a month.

These work great! Batteries from the factory didn't last long. Put in new and haven't had a problem since! It's nice having piece of mind related to water in my basement. I placed them around my sump pump and water heater and haven't worried since!

The range from the hub is limited so if you plan to install multiple sensors then you might need multiple hubs. We are also using several sprinkler controllers so we have multiple hubs. With multiple hubs the water sensors work great all around the house. Battery life is about a year with good hub connections. When one gets low, I change them all to keep in sync.