Most water damage in a home does not come from a burst pipe. It comes from a slow leak under a sink, behind a washing machine or beside a water heater, running for days before anyone notices. A leak sensor costs less than a nice dinner and can turn that into a message on your phone the same day.
How a leak sensor works
A leak sensor has two metal contacts on its underside. When water bridges them, the sensor reports a leak. Some sensors are a small puck that sits on the floor. Others have a cable with a probe on the end so you can slip it into a tight spot.
The sensor itself cannot reach your phone. It sends its status to a gateway or to your Wi-Fi, and something online has to turn "leak detected" into an email or notification. That last step is the part a dashboard handles.
Where to put them
Put sensors where water collects first, not where it ends up.
- Under the kitchen sink, on the lowest point of the cabinet floor
- Behind or beside the washing machine and the dishwasher
- Next to the water heater, on the floor beside the drain pan
- Under the fridge water line, if you have an ice maker
- Next to a sump pump pit or in the lowest corner of a basement
- Near a toilet supply line in a bathroom that is rarely used
Lay the sensor flat. A sensor leaning against a wall might not touch a thin film of water.
Connecting a sensor to SensorConsole
- Create a free account, then choose Connect a sensor.
- Set the category to Water leak and name the device after its location, such as "Under kitchen sink". Good names matter, because the alert email will use it.
- Choose how the sensor connects. Our Ecowitt page and Shelly page have the exact steps for those brands. A DIY sensor on an ESP32 uses the generic push option.
- Open the device page and find the Alerts box. Tick Email me as soon as a leak is detected and save.
The leak alert has its own six hour limit, separate from the silent device alert described below, so one never hides the other.
Make sure your account email is verified on the profile page. An alert sent to an address you never confirmed may end up in spam.
Know the timing
For sensors that send their own readings, such as Ecowitt and Bresser stations, Shelly devices and DIY boards, the leak check happens the moment a reading arrives. The email goes out within seconds of the sensor reporting. Most leak sensors only report when something changes or every few minutes, so the real delay is usually the sensor's own reporting interval.
For sensors that SensorConsole collects from a brand's cloud, the check happens each time the sync runs, which is about every 15 minutes. Either way, an email is not a replacement for an automatic shutoff valve if you need the water stopped in seconds.
After a leak email is sent, the same device will not send another leak email for six hours. This keeps your inbox quiet while you mop up, and it means that if the leak is still there six hours later, you hear about it again.
Also set the silent alert
A leak sensor that has lost power looks exactly like a sensor in a dry room. Both send nothing alarming. In the same Alerts box, set Email me if this device goes silent for more than to something like 24 hours. Then a dead battery becomes an email too, and you replace it before it matters.
Make the phone side reliable
- Add the sender address to your contacts, so the message is never filtered.
- In your mail app, turn on push notifications for that sender or mark it as a priority sender.
- Do not rely on an email app that only checks for new mail once an hour.
Test before you trust it
Wet your finger and touch the two contacts on the sensor. Watch the device page for the reading to change, then wait for the email. If nothing arrives within half an hour, check the spam folder, then the profile page to confirm your email is verified. Do this test once after setup and again each time you change the battery.