use a Switchbot water leak detector without a hub in Home Assistant … set up a Bluetooth proxy in ESPHome
You can connect the Switchbot water leak detector with Home Assistant without the need for a Switchbot hub. The detector uses Bluetooth and wifi to send out its alarms which will be picked up by the Switchbot app on your phone. You can instead setup a Bluetooth proxy (a DIY Bluetooth gateway) in Home Assistant and the detector will (very probably) be discovered for you. And wow.
how to add a Bluetooth proxy to Home Assistant
A Bluetooth proxy requires almost any of the ESP32 development boards you can find at maker shops or Amazon. You’ll also need a simple USB power supply, plus a mains socket close to the centre of your house. You can set up at least a couple of these should you need to ‘listen’ out for Bluetooth devices, such as phones around the home. Here’s how I set up a Bluetooth Proxy to give me more control compared to the ‘official way’.
are there better smart leak detectors?
Maybe and there are certainly cheaper leak detectors than the Switchbot version. The Switchbot water leak detector can be bought with a cabled 2-prong sensor so for a few ££ more you can monitor two potential leak points at once. Overall the device and app feel well made and easy to recommend plus you need nothing else to be up and running.
If you search search ebay or aliexpress you’ll find a variety of ‘limpet style’ devices to place wherever and they will either beep or give out a 433MHz signal, or a Zigbee signal or a WiFi signal. You may already have setup an RF or Zigbee receiver for these signals. The versions labelled ‘TUYA wifi’ won’t need any extra hardware to start being useful in Home Assistant. In all cases you’ll probably install them, forget about them but hopefully remember to replace the batteries.
more things to do – notifications
The Switchbot app is able to raise a leak alert on your phone as well as send out ‘leak detected’ emails. Those alerts can now come from Home Assistant which offers similar options and more. One type of notification, called a ‘persistent notification’ is possibly the most appropriate for a ‘leak’. One more point: I can’t say if the Switchbot app is now redundant – I haven’t removed mine as it’s a good app.
I put my leak detector at the top of a hot water cylinder where its immersion heater element screws in. I expect a leak alert every few years. That’s several battery changes. I’m not sure if this location is the best use for the sensor.
