I am planning to have a whole house water filtration system installed. Since this requires modification to the current plumbing, I would also like to install a Smart Water Valve + Meter system. I’ve read a good bit about other products, but keep going back to the ADC-SWM150. I like that it will be integrated in my existing alarm/home automation platform.
I currently have the 2GIG GC3 Panel w/the latest Firmware installed. (In the process of migrating off the 3G Cellular Module over to the LTE module.)
Any known issues w/the ADC-SWM150 working with my current panel? (ZWave platform, obviously)
At this time the SWM150 is not sold through our store. Usually we carry products based on demand. I will forward this to our team as a request for adding the product to our website, and I’ll see if there are any other options.
Looks like it may be available here. Not seeing many end-user facing options, but that is likely due to the cost and the fact it requires plumber installation.
The important thing to make sure you have an expansion tank installed if you have a conventional hot water tank.
Some news, the other day I noticed the alert LED was blinking 5 times, I only happened to noticed it when I was near the unit, but turns out it was warning me that my water temperature was cold (i.e. below 39F). It was probably happening all winter, here’s my water temperature data for the month of March, you’ll see the temperature dip below 39F when there is a large amount of water being used
I just bought an ADC-SWM150 smart water valve+meter and am having a plumber install it on Friday. I’m a Surety customer with a Qolsys IQPanel 2+ panel.
Once the plumbing is installed and everything powered up my understanding is that I should just be able to include it just like any Z-wave device and configure it directly from the web site, right? No dealer-level reconfiguration or service-level changes required, right…?
You should just need water management enabled on your account. Water management is required for basic functions. For the flow meter functionality Water Management Plus (a new Alarm.com add-on) is required.
You can adjust your account plan features by visiting the System Manager here. For Water Management Plus, it is not yet in the System Manager, currently please reach out to us via message or email at support@suretyhome.com and we can get that added to your account.
Water Management Plus is $2/month
Looks like you already have water management active.
Good luck, @Tarek! Let us know how it goes.
Mine is scheduled to be installed Monday along with a whole home water filtration system. Looking forward to integrating the smart valve and accessing the data from it.
Will post reviews here along the way.
There is something you should know, though. The customer virtually has no access to all the detailed data that is available from the device, only the dealer does… and even the dealer doesn’t get 100% of the data (i.e like voltage output of the leak sensor, for example and other diagnostics).
The customer will only get daily water usage, and daily average (after 1 week it will show the average), and the ability to turn the valve on and off. You can set up the alerts and automations in your account also, but that is it.
Adjusting thresholds, your dealer will/can do for you, detailed usage and history, temperature, etc. only your dealer can tell you, its doesn’t show up on your account on the customer side.
This is something I hope they will change in the future and make more data/information available to the customer.
@xeon - Thanks for the feedback (today and last week)! Wow - Disappointing ADC does not allow that detailed information to be visible by the customer. Even if it were web access only, that would be better than holding it back 100%. I imagine it requires add’l programming / development for us to have visibility. Hopefully future enhancements will enable us to see the detailed data.
I guess until the new wears off, I’ll be asking the dealer (Surety) for a report here and there.
I have the ADC-SWM150 installed now. Everything functions perfectly when controlled locally. However, I’m seeing a tendency for ADC-issued commands and status to get out of sync in a manner that can’t easily be easily corrected. For instance, valve is open and ADC correctly indicates it’s open. If I issue a close command via ADC, it actually responds immediately and closes - but then never updates status to indicate it is closed (even if I refresh). It remains on “Closing” with the transition animation until it times out and indicates “command has not been received by XXX. We will keep trying to connect.”
If I refresh, close app, whatever, no difference. At this point, status reverts back to open (and is incorrect).
Because it thinks it’s open, it doesn’t offer another close command. If I then issue an Open command, it continues doing on the “Opening” transition animation and never gets to the point of correcting resynching status to indicate that it is open - it eventually times out with same error as above.
I initially included this using the ADC app. There are neighboring devices, including an HDSS a couple feet away, so I really can’t see it being a signaling issue (plus the initial command always takes immediately).
I power cycled the power supply for the smart valve+meter, but no subsequent difference in behavior. I then unlearned it, and then relearned it - this time directly from the panel rather than ADC app. Some behavior. I am using S2 security, in case that makes any difference.
I couldn’t find anything for the water valve in the panel, but to be honest I didn’t have a chance to dig through menus just yet to see if there are any home screens I can enable for it.
However, I repeated this testing with commands issued (and feedback monitored) from the ADC web site. The behavior was identical in that when starting from “correct” valve indication (i.e. ADC valve status indication reflects actual valve status), the command will always succeed and the valve position change to what is requested. However, ADC continues to show “Opening” or “Closing” travel indication and transition animation past the point of Open/Closed completion, until some timeout is reached, at which point an error is presented falsely indicating that the command failed. From ADC’s website, it indicated “We could not confirm water valve state change for XXX” and “Closing water value XXX failed”. At this point it reflects the starting (now incorrect) status of the valve.
The one difference in behavior between ADC app and web site that I noticed is that if I manually refresh status on the web site, it will actually update the status correctly. Once I do this, status in the app is correctly updated, as well. However, if I attempt to refresh in the app by swiping down (without having first refreshed status on the web site), I never see a refresh to update correct status.
This behavior seems very consistent.
@xeon, do you have this problem? I know you also have the same panel as mine (and likely up to date firmware - 2.5.5).
@CaptainDRC, hope your install on Monday goes well! I’d be curious if you see this same behavior, as well.
Glad you got this installed, Tarek. You’ll like it lots.
I can’t say that I’ve experienced the same status issues as you’ve described. This sounds to me like a general flaky z-wave issue. Can you check the signal strength of the water valve in the z-wave diagnostics? the number in dB.
Also, I can also confirm that you cannot control the valve at the panel, at least not yet.
Edit: just to give you a bit more detail, on an IQ2 panel Ver. 2.5.5 this is what happens: with the valve open, I press close on the app, a prompt comes up and acknowledge it, and within 2 seconds the “closed/closing valve” blinks red and the app is grey out saying the same thing. After a 4 or 5 seconds, the LED on the device stays solid red indicating its fully closed, and the app updated to closed within a few second. Opening the valve, its the same thing, except the green light is blinking and then solid.
I’m trying to remember if I did this… but ever since that whole Schlage\HEM\SDK issue, I learn everything at the panel now. Might want to try that, clear it first, then learn it at the panel within 2 ft.
You can easily disconnect the electronics from the the water valve and bring it to your panel and do this. Then reconnect it to the hardware after successful inclusion (follow the instruction manual), and do an entire network discovery.
@xeon , thanks for the comparison and suggestions! Unfortunately, the misbehavior continued to persist and I was out of town over the weekend, but this morning I checked and the signal strength appeared to be good. There were also zero error/failed counters for this device. It also reported over 8 neighboring devices. I could not review the exact dB (the mesh map is very densely populated with repeat-capable nodes, such that I can’t make it out between the overlaps).
With xeon’s suggestion in mind (and knowing that this is a common recommendation), I unlearned the smart water valve+meter, moved it up right in front of the panel and included it there. When it prompted how to include it, I accepted the default “S2 Authenticated” and “S2 Unathenticated” selections (both were already checked). Then, when prompted, I entered the DSK labeled on the box (and the back of the valve controller, under PIN). Once successfully included, I then let it continue powered up next to the panel for another 10 minutes.
I then moved it back to the location of the valve, physically installed it again, and unfortunately can confirm the same misbehavior.
@jwcsurety , could you kindly look into this or check with ADC if this is some sort of known issue, or what our next steps might be?
Additionally, I had a few other questions that have come up in the meantime:
The only user configuration for Automation Rules that I can see are automation for opening/closing the valve based on some triggering condition - such as flood sensor alarming or panel arming status. I don’t see anything at all configurable under Notifications. I know that there are dealer configurations for some of this stuff, but it looked like these were more for tuning flow rate thresholds and enabling/disable local (buzzer) notifications at the controller. Aren’t there supposed to be configurable notifications for unexpected water activity (i.e. low/medium/high water usage and/or high water usage duration when no one is home, detection for running toilets, etc)?
How do I access water reports (usage, water temperature, etc)? I had expected to find something comparable to the Heater and Cooling Health Report for thermostats, but don’t see anything like this.
I don’t see anything in the ADC app (or ADC web site, for that matter) for daily water metering. It looked like there is supposed to be a card for this, which eventually should show weekly averages, as well. I’m seeing nothing like this.
clicking on the water drop at the bottom, will give you a list of water sensors and their status, clicking on the right arrow, will give you the on/off control of the valve, plus more water sensors status and Sump Pump status. The same is true for the website interface.
There should be an “unexpected water activity” in your notifications list which will show the low, medium and high flow alerts AND in the automation, you can set it to turn off the valve if any of these conditions are met and/or set off the buzzer. You can enable this and test it out. For example, with the high flow, you’ll have to turn on all showers, flush all toilets and run a few faucets and within a 1 min, you’ll get a notification saying high flow detected, turning off your valve (this is AFTER you set up the notifications and automations). The same is true for the low flow, except, the low by default, detects ANY flow amount for at least 2 hours. All these conditions can be changed on the dealer end. Here are the default conditions for high, medium and low:
high - 1 min of 7.5 GPM or more
med- 40 min of 1 GPM or more (but < 7.5 GPM)
low - 2 hours of any flow (but < 1 GPM)
Temp (LED will flash if the temp goes above or below these numbers):
High: 65oC
Low: 4 oC
Unfortunately, only your dealer can give you detailed reports.
Very interesting… I do have that same card, it just doesn’t show anything related to flow. Additionally, the missing notifications for “Unexpected water activity” that you mentioned also happen to be flow-related - this hardly seems to be a coincidence. I don’t see this category at all.
I should mention that my flow detection is showing locally on the controller, and that I did successfully test it as specified in the manual. If I open a faucet, the Flow LED on the controller illuminates within ~25 seconds, then goes out again within ~25 seconds of closing the faucet.
I did also notice that the water meter shows up under Manage Device. As you can see, the ellipses (which allows device renames) is grayed out for the meter. I assume that this was because it was a child device of sorts and so could not be renamed distinctly from the parent valve device:
