

Wally: a home sensing solution - undo
http://www.wally-home.com

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jkravitz61
This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. You would need a heck of a lot
of sensors to cover all of the places where there could be potential problems
which would cost hundreds of dollars. Additionally, these sensors need to be
replaced roughly every 7 years while during this time maybe 1 spot in a home
will be problematic and be sensed with this system if it's even working at
all. If this sensor senses a problem, significant damage is most likely
already done. Any cost savings of decreased home damages are outweighed by the
cost of these sensors. Instead of buying a bunch of sensors, it would much
much more sense to have a thorough home inspection conducted. Also, if there
is a moisture problem, do these sensitive electronics even remain intact?

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jogzden
Seems like a great idea, but I couldn't help but find this
[http://i.imgur.com/h7DjXen.png](http://i.imgur.com/h7DjXen.png) picture to be
really awkward.

What's going on with her legs?

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bluedevil2k
This is like the Nest and the Nest-Smoke Detector - a beautiful solution with
some high tech wizardry, but I could solve the problem just as easily by
spending 10% of their solution. You can buy a 6-pack of devices on Amazon that
make a noise like a smoke alarm when it detects water for $30.

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nikatwork
And they would like look a six-pack of fugly cheap plastic thingies. And you
have to chain them up yourself. And they wouldn't talk to an integrated app.

300 buckadingdongs for 6 sensors, a hub and an app seems quite reasonable to
me. This would be especially useful for a landlord to unobtrusively monitor
properties.

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julianpye
This is an area of huge interest to some insurance companies, however one of
their biggest problems are water leaks within walls that take weeks to build
up and cost insurances millions. If anyone can find a cost effective way to
solve that problem, the potential would be huge.

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racketeer
Couldn't you just use one of these things, but instead of batteries plug right
into the wall?

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therobot24
Lots of nice pictures of why to get it (your kids, your beautiful home, etc) -
pulling heart strings can be effective. However, the website didn't make the
technology very clear which is immediately suspicious in my book - place a
magic box somewhere in your home and get notifications if something goes wrong
(water or temperature related). The dashboard and interface also looks nice,
but the product seems to give the false implication that with a bunch of these
you'll have something of a smart-home. I definitely believe that smart-home
type products are usually a good investment, and with this you may be one
(small) step closer. However, i'm of thinking that most homeowners are very
familiar with the state of their home - not that there can't be surprises -
but for 300$ the piece of mind may not be worth the carelessness that comes
with it (thinking all is well so i don't need to check).

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Stwerp
Clicking "how does it work" and scrolling down has a link to a paper published
in ubicomp 2010 detailing the CMOS chip and modulation. They seem pretty open
about the technology to me.

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therobot24
oh must have missed it then. My bad.

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hkbarton
Can i stick the sensor to the wall or somewhere, i think the sensor better has
some kind of suction

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joezydeco
Unless they're using some kind of new technology to detect water it seems like
the sensor needs to be where the unwanted water will be. And that's on the
floor.

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marcosdumay
Our homes are different from what people build at the US, but at least here,
leaking water is normally located at the walls. You'll have plenty of evidence
of a leakage (like destroyed painting and bad smell) much before it reaches
the floor.

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joezydeco
This sensor doesn't seem to do any extraordinary detection like that. It's an
ordinary RH/Temp/H20 contact sensor.

Now if the sensor could watch the walls for far-infrared discoloration to show
unseen leaks that would be useful in your part of the world, but that's going
to be a ways off.

[http://smokedamagemichigan.com/water_damage.htm](http://smokedamagemichigan.com/water_damage.htm)

