ISY 994i PRO with Fortrezz Water Flow Meter

[k0d3g3ar]

I have been using my ISY for years and its awesome.  I've got it controlling most of my house, but the one thing that was alluding me was water usage.  After having come home from vacation to find irrigation sprinklers damaged and hundreds in unnecessary water bills, I decided to install the Fortrezz shut off valve and the Fortrezz Water Flow meter.  Both are ZWave and I have both of them correctly included in my ISY unit.  I can shut enable/disable the water shut off valve remotely now.

But the one thing I can't seem to work out is how to look at water usage over time.  The Water flow meter correctly sends its reading to the ISY unit.  But its a net flow amount (ie. 60 gallons, etc.) and although I can periodically read it, what I'm looking for is something that works with the ISY that will determine usage over time and alert for usage that exceeds certain thresholds (e.g. more than 2x normal flow over a 60 minute period, etc.).  

Has anyone here worked out a way to make this come together?  I'm a software developer by trade so I could probably write something using the REST interface for this, but I'd prefer to use something already done.  If anyone has done something like this that can integrate into the program logic of the ISY, I'd love to hear all about it.

Thanks

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi K0d3g3ar,

I can think of two possible ways:

1. Use 5.0.12 firmware: save the value in a variable when you start the measurement and then have another program continuously compare the variable to whatever threshold you want

2. Create a Polyglot node server and put all your logic there. Perhaps this could apply to other water sensing solutions

With kind regards,

Michel

[blueman2]

On 6/4/2018 at 5:03 PM, k0d3g3ar said:

I have been using my ISY for years and its awesome.  I've got it controlling most of my house, but the one thing that was alluding me was water usage.  After having come home from vacation to find irrigation sprinklers damaged and hundreds in unnecessary water bills, I decided to install the Fortrezz shut off valve and the Fortrezz Water Flow meter.  Both are ZWave and I have both of them correctly included in my ISY unit.  I can shut enable/disable the water shut off valve remotely now.

But the one thing I can't seem to work out is how to look at water usage over time.  The Water flow meter correctly sends its reading to the ISY unit.  But its a net flow amount (ie. 60 gallons, etc.) and although I can periodically read it, what I'm looking for is something that works with the ISY that will determine usage over time and alert for usage that exceeds certain thresholds (e.g. more than 2x normal flow over a 60 minute period, etc.).  

Has anyone here worked out a way to make this come together?  I'm a software developer by trade so I could probably write something using the REST interface for this, but I'd prefer to use something already done.  If anyone has done something like this that can integrate into the program logic of the ISY, I'd love to hear all about it.

Thanks

@k0d3g3ar, I too am looking at getting the FortrezZ 1" flow meter to monitor water usage in my house.  Does the ISY see both Water Amount (e.g. 60 gallons) AND water flow rate (e.g. 3gpm)?  I am as interested in flow rate as total flow amount over time.  Also, I am curious what is the minimum flow rate that the device will detect.  Typically, I am seeing meters not going below 0.5GPM but I would like something that might go even lower.  

Thanks!

[k0d3g3ar]

15 minutes ago, blueman2 said:

@k0d3g3ar, I too am looking at getting the FortrezZ 1" flow meter to monitor water usage in my house.  Does the ISY see both Water Amount (e.g. 60 gallons) AND water flow rate (e.g. 3gpm)?  I am as interested in flow rate as total flow amount over time.  Also, I am curious what is the minimum flow rate that the device will detect.  Typically, I am seeing meters not going below 0.5GPM but I would like something that might go even lower.  

Thanks!

I purchased my FortrezZ Flow meter and have it integrated with the ISY.  The ISY does see it just fine.  The thing is that it only sees it as a single measurement.  I may not be taking advantage of everything the ISY can do here, but from what I can tell if I poll the flow meter every X seconds to get a value, then I can potentially detect a leak.  But the problem is that unless you have some persistent and historical data, it may not actually be that valuable.  For example, a long flow of water might be a representation of a water leak (ie. irrigation break, etc.) and I can't detect that from a single poll that there is a water flow of X gallons.  I really need to poll this over time and plot the flow, and then look at trends (ie. every hour detect total flow for that last hour and determine whether that exceeds thresholds in order to trigger some alarm condition).

What I was thinking of doing was to write some Linux software that would do this, put the data into a SQL database and then run a cron job to look for trends each hour and if some rule is triggered, then have the ISY send out the instruction to the shut off valve I also have installed to turn it off (and notify me).  This is a project on my to-do list, but I have no idea when/if I'll start it.  At least the ISY has a REST API to it, so I think it may be something I can do.

[blueman2]

Thanks, @k0d3g3ar!  I am curious what version of ISY you are running.  I am thinking the Fortrezz might provide both Total Amount and Flow Rate data, but might require V5.12 or higher to see it correctly.  But what you describe would be an alternate route.  I am probably going to go ahead and get the FortrezZ and play with it.  BTW, do you have your inside or outside your house?  I know it is rated only for inside use, but I might try to create a cover for it so that I can connect it as the pipe comes into my house from the ground.  

[k0d3g3ar]

37 minutes ago, blueman2 said:

Thanks, @k0d3g3ar!  I am curious what version of ISY you are running.  I am thinking the Fortrezz might provide both Total Amount and Flow Rate data, but might require V5.12 or higher to see it correctly.  But what you describe would be an alternate route.  I am probably going to go ahead and get the FortrezZ and play with it.  BTW, do you have your inside or outside your house?  I know it is rated only for inside use, but I might try to create a cover for it so that I can connect it as the pipe comes into my house from the ground.  

My ISY is quite old.   I'd have to check on its version.  Can't remember the last time I did a firmware upgrade to it.

As for location, we put it on the inside of my garage.  I had my plumber re-route the main water lines from the street to our house through the inside of the garage wall and back out again (looks kinda "Steampunk" when it was all finished), and I had the Flow Meter and the Shutoff valve installed in line with the copper piping.  It is about 20 ft from the ISY location, but Z-Wave picks it up just fine.  You need to have it near a power source, so this worked as I could just power it from a local outlet inside the garage.  I've had it setup this way for about 2 years now.  You'd think I would have integrated this into the full home automation system by now, but you know how us engineers have way too many projects to do .... 

Oh, and we live in Arizona.  Outside wouldn't work in the summer here.

Edited May 24, 2019 by k0d3g3ar

[larryllix]

@k0d3g3ar

Welcome to the UDI forums!

Great entrance you made! Thanks from all of us!