Smart ways to prevent water damage
Moen's Flo is a smart water meter that can monitor the water consumption in your home, test your system for leaks, and prevent water damage through an automatic shutdown function.
Even the smallest leaks in your home’s plumbing system can have a devastating effect because they are often overlooked until the damage becomes obvious and you find yourself spending a lot of money to repair the damaged ceiling, floor or wall. With Moen's Flo ($499.99), you can regularly test for leaks, view daily and weekly water usage reports, and manually shut off the water supply, all using your phone. It also has an automatic shutdown function that can be activated when an abnormally high flow rate or an increase in water pressure is detected, and can be used in conjunction with other smart devices through the IFTTT app. Although it is not cheap, its cost is only a drop in the bucket compared to what you spend on water damage repair and high water bills, so it won Flo's Editor's Choice Award.
Flo measures 5.9 x 5.7 x 2.6 inches (HWD) and has a dark blue shell. 3/4 inch or 1-1/4 inch water pipes can be ordered. The meter has a threaded input connector on one end and a threaded output connector on the other end. There is a green manual shut-off valve on the top, if you lose connection with the app, you need to use a hexagonal wrench (included) to turn on or off the water, and there are two status LEDs (system and valve) and a power jack. When Flo is connected to your network, the system status LED lights up green, when the valve is open (water flow), the valve LED is green, when it is closed (closed mode) it is red, and it is white when switching.
There is a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio and sensor inside that can measure the water pressure, temperature and flow rate of your home. The meter is equipped with two brass threaded connectors, two O-rings, a mounting gasket, a manual closing hex wrench and a power adapter. It also comes with an installation guide and a welcome guide. Although an installation guide is provided, the company recommends using a professional plumber to install this equipment.
Its working principle is as follows: The Flo meter is installed on a part of the main water pipe, behind the water meter and the pressure reducing valve. It monitors water pressure in pounds per square inch (psi), water temperature in degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit, and flow rate in gallons per minute. Like the Pani water meter, the Flo water meter requires a 7-10 day learning period, and it will track your household water consumption and create a water footprint. If you want to monitor usage at the fixture level (shower, toilet, etc.), you must subscribe to Flo Protect, which is a $5 monthly service and also provides you with an additional two-year warranty (you can Plan), flood protection up to $2,500, use of the Water Concierge real-time support system, and a verification letter that can save some money on your homeowner’s insurance policy.
If you have Flo Protect, the device will need to collect enough data for an additional 7-14 days after the initial learning period to identify the usage of each fixture, which means you can wait 21 days or more from the initial installation You can take full advantage of the equipment before. However, once Flo has identified each fixture, it will provide an up-to-date usage report and allow you to create goals to help conserve water.
One of the most important functions of Flo is that if it detects abnormally high water consumption due to leaks or pipe bursts or abnormally high water pressure, it can automatically shut down the entire family's water supply. Before the device turns off the water source, you will receive an app alert and an automatic call. However, there is no user setting that allows you to create your own threshold to trigger the shutdown. If you will use a lot of water to fill things like swimming pools, you can temporarily disable automatic shutdown and notifications by putting your device in sleep mode, but you can customize the pressure and usage settings to avoid accidental shutdowns.
In addition to the sleep mode, there is also a Home mode designed for normal daily use, with automatic shutdown protection and alarms enabled, and an Away mode for you to use when you are away from home for a long time. In Away mode, the system knows that no one is at home, and if any abnormal event is detected, it will take action faster.
You can use Alexa and Google voice commands to ask Flo if everything is normal at home, how much water you used in the day, week, or month, and if you have any pending alerts. In addition, Flo supports the IFTTT applet, which means you can make it do things, such as triggering the Nest thermostat when the water temperature drops to a certain level, or flashing the Philips Hue light when an alarm is issued. It also applies to Control4 enabled devices.
Flo can be controlled via a user-friendly mobile app (for Android or iOS) or via a web console. The app will open a home screen that displays the name of your home, and has an alert tab and a tab for Flo devices installed (you can control multiple devices from the same app). Tap the Flo device tab to view pressure, flow rate, and water temperature gauges, and run a health test to check for leaks, freezing warnings, high/low pressure, and abnormal hot water. There is also an on/off button to stop and start the flow of water throughout the house.
Back on the home screen, you can swipe down to see the "Water consumption" tab, which shows how many gallons of water you use in a day or week, and how this affects your daily and weekly goals. Below is a fixture tab with a colored chart showing how much water each fixture uses. Click the View More Detailed Information button to open the usage history screen, which displays the water consumption per minute of each fixture.
There is a small drop-down button in the upper right corner of the main screen that allows you to choose between home, away and sleep modes. At the bottom edge of the screen are the home, alarm, help, and settings buttons. The home button will take you back to the home screen, and the alarm button will open a screen that contains an activity log of events, including health test results, drip detection, automatic closing events, valve opening and closing, and high water consumption. Use the "Help" button to access Water Concierge and view the help tutorial, then click the "Settings" button to edit your location and house name and select the unit of measurement (imperial or metric).
As mentioned above, Flo recommends that a licensed plumber professionally install the meter, and will even help you find the meter in your area. Based on your pipeline configuration, expect to pay $250 and above. I used the plumbers recommended by Flo. They arrived on time, were very professional, and completed an excellent job in just over an hour.
When installing the Flo meter, I downloaded the app and created an account. Once my email is verified, I open the app and click the plus button to add my home. Here, you will spend a lot of time answering questions such as the type of residence (single-family house, apartment, apartment, other) and how it is used (main residence, holiday house, rental house, other). You must also name the house, fill in the address and time zone information, enter the approximate size and number of floors of the house, and the number of bathrooms you have.
The app will also want to know what type of pipe (copper, galvanized, CPVC, PEX, others) you have, if you know where the shut-off valve is and where to get water from (city, well). Next, the system will ask you to select the appliances and convenience facilities you use from the list, including bathtubs, dishwashers, hot tubs, swimming pools, tankless water heaters, etc. You will also be asked how many people live in your home and set a water consumption goal for each person and a total household consumption goal (the app recommends 80-100 gallons per person per day). You can then enter your homeowner's insurance information (you may be eligible for discounts on smart meters) and your water supplier, or you can leave them blank.
After creating an account, you can pair the Flo meter with the app. I clicked Add Device, selected 3/4 inch meter, and confirmed that the meter was inserted. I pressed the reset button until the status LED started flashing and connected to the Flo SSID using my phone’s Wi-Fi settings. I return to the app and select my home Wi-Fi from the list, enter my Wi-Fi password, and the meter connects to my network within a few seconds.
It should be noted that once the water meter is online, it will enter sleep mode and understand your water consumption habits. During this period, you can still use the app to turn on and off water and view statistics such as usage, flow, and water pressure, but you will not receive an alert and the automatic shutdown feature will be disabled.
The flowmeter performed well in the test. It immediately started monitoring my water supply system and reporting on my daily usage, and detected small drops of water during the first health check. It turned out that there was a problem with my toilet filling valve and needed to be replaced. When I closed the main valve and cleared the water system while installing a new water heater, it also reported a drop in water pressure. The dashboard screen displays my water consumption graph in hourly increments, records my daily, weekly, and monthly usage, and calculates how close I am to the usage goals entered during the setup period.
The app-controlled close button works normally, and whenever I ask Alexa to tell me how much water I use every day and every week, the response is quick and accurate. I created an IFTTT applet, when Flo successfully completes the health check, it will turn on the Philips Hue light, and it can also run smoothly.
I had to wait almost a month to see the readings of the individual lamps, but once they did, I was able to see exactly how much water each lamp used and when.
Although its $500 price and installation cost seem to be too high, compared to the cost of repairing the damage caused by long-term leaks and broken pipes, every penny of the Moen Water Monitor is worth the money, not to mention the long-term waste. The cost of water. time. This smart water meter will perform daily system health tests and will alert you in case of any leaks and let you know how much water is used by the fixtures in your home to help you manage and save water. Most importantly, it tracks the water pressure, temperature, and flow rate of your home, and automatically shuts off the water source when it determines that any of these readings has reached a level that could cause serious damage. I hope to be able to better control the high usage rate and high pressure threshold that initiates the automatic shutdown, but this does not prevent Flo from winning the Editor's Choice Award.
Moen's Flo is a smart water meter that can monitor the water consumption in your home, test your system for leaks, and prevent water damage through an automatic shutdown function.
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As a contributing editor of PCMag, John Delaney has been testing and reviewing monitors, TVs, PCs, networks and smart home devices as well as various other hardware and peripherals for nearly 20 years. As a veteran who has worked in the PC Magazine laboratory for 13 years (most recently as the Director of Operations), John is responsible for the recruitment, training and management of laboratory technicians, as well as evaluating and maintaining the integrity of laboratory testing machines and procedures. Before joining Ziff Davis, John worked in the retail business of Federated Stores, Inc. for 6 years and then accepted a purchasing position at Morris Decision Systems, one of the first value-added resellers of the original IBM PC in New York. For the next five years, he was responsible for purchasing and configuring IBM PC, XT and AT desktops for many financial institutions in New York. Before joining PC Magazine in 1987, he worked for the now-defunct ComputerLand chain of PCs.
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