Hero-Labs Sonic Remote Water Valve. Not exactly HomeKit..... yet.

 This is the Hero-Labs Sonic WiFi Water Valve.

Getting here is a story in it's self.

I've been dabbling with the dark side. No, not Alexa, Google Home or SmartThings, but actually been looking at Home Assistant. Mainly because I put in Solar power, and Apple have really missed an opportunity here. HA gives some great info on my electricity, but that's a whole different post.

However, the Energy dashboard in HA also has water usage and then I started to look into what you can do in the UK. Mostly it was about building a device that literally reads your meter for you... but, from what I read, it can be inaccurate at times. Then someone posted up about this device. I took a look and I like it!

It is standalone right now. Has its own app, and doesn't integrate with anything.... at the moment. I do not know their exact plans but I asked about Home Assistant and also Apple Home, and I got a reply that both are on their "to do" list. However, this thing does alert you! And it works, this evening I got altered to water running for a long time. As it happens, it was the tenant in the flat over my garage having a bath!

If you set up the Sonic correctly, over time it will start to know what devices you have switched on/off and so notifications will decrease.

It even knows what temperature the water is, so can notify you if it thinks your pipes will freeze.

So, yeah, you can't integrate it, but it's definitely worth a look.

Installation

Well, I got a plumber to do it and, at the same time, replace a whole section of iron pipe with copper pipe. The instructions are very easy to follow and I must say Hero Labs were very pro-active in making sure I got the instructions to pass on to the plumber.

 After that, it is literally install the app and follow the instructions. Even here, Hero labs have made it easy.

Inside the installation manual, there is a QR code to download the app and then you just follow the prompts:

I really appreciated all the options to register and, not surprisingly, I used my Apple login.

Sonic does send you notifications, and so it is a good idea to Allow. However, I would say that as it is learning for the first day or so, it can be a bit verbose. However, it quickly settled down.

The phone number is used as it will call you. However, considering this is a British company, why it calls you with an American accent I do not know. Seeing as it is a synthesised voice, it should be able to call you with the correct nationality.

Then it wants to know who inhabits the house. I'm guessing this is so it can make some kind of guess as to the kind of profile to expect with the water usage. Interesting it asks about pets.

I made mistake here, as I forgot about the flat above my garage, so I have to go back and redo this info. However, that's not possible. I contacted Hero Labs and they have informed me that they'll be updating the UI to make it possible. But no indication when. Until then, my only option is to delete the house and start again.

You are then asked to set up all the rooms in the house and their water appliances within them.

I must admit, this is getting a bit old for me. I'm fed up with telling multiple applications the names of the rooms in my house, what's in them, etc, etc. In this case, the product doesn't (yet) integrate with anything so it needs to know. However, Hero Labs, if you area reading this please get your configs from any integration you do.

You may notice that there is an ability to add a custom appliance too. That could be down to just wanting a different name for something, but the appliance is in their list.

Now you actually get to set up the Sonic. Bizarrely it asks if the app can use Bluetooth before it asks if you have installed it yet. This makes me think:

1. Why are you asking to use Bluetooth if my next answer is no? 
2. If I had said yes, then shouldn't you ask about Bluetooth then and can't you look before you ask me the question of do I have it installed yet?

I just don't get the logic, especially when:

This, now, is the actual point where the app needs Bluetooth, so actually ask here.

I'll just stop and pause for a few moments here too, about the installation. 

There is a pretty good guide on line, and I recommend following it and providing your plumber with the info before hand this will save you times specially if you live in a rural area like me where the nearest plumbing supplies are 10 miles away.

I didn't test what would happen if I said "No" to had I installed the batteries. The device can run on batteries, but I recommend that you have a power supply near by. The batteries are really for standby mode if there is a power cut. I can say that they work, as I've had said power cut and Sonic kept going (My main router is on battery backup too).

I did have the installation done during working hours, and it was a few hours later that I did the setup. I found that I had to reset the device for it to be found. That's not HeroLabs fault, but just be aware that it may happen.

Again, though, I was surprised about being asked to provide my WiFi info. I did think that it would automatically get that info from my phone. Just about every other device I've set up did that.

I will say that the connection to WiFi was flawless. No messing about with dual band, etc, even though it says it only supports 2.4Ghz. For record I have an Eero 6 Plus mesh.

Use of HeroLabs Sonic.

At its very simplest, you can now remotely turn the water off and on. Above you can see when I turned it off. You can also do this with the physical handle on the valve which may be necessary if you have lost power for some time.

If the water is on, you can see if water has flowed very recently, and how much was used. You can also see the amount for the day.

I also like that you can see the pressure and the water temperature. One of the things that Sonic will do is to alert you if it thinks there is a chance of a burst pipe or that you may have a leak. 

Check-up/Check-Up/CHECK-UP

The leak is a test and is part of the Beta feature of Check-Up. It runs by default, at 4am in the morning where it sees if water pressure drops over a short period of time and by how much. At the moment, I'd say it is less than perfect... but it is beta, so that can be forgiven.

You can set up Sonic so that it will send notifications to your phone, or you can just find them in the app.

Above is a Check-Up alert (Note to UI developer, in the main screen you call it Check-up. Should be consistent). I like the useful info it gives, but I wish that it also gave an option to go to the main Check-Up screen rather than just "Dismiss". It just saves clicks.

In the main screen for Check-Up you can see a graphic representation of your pressure, and the last test results and when the next run will be. If you scroll down, you will see what days the test failed/passed, etc.

I've yet to understand why mine sometimes fails or passes because, as far as I know, the situation is the same at 4am every day. Still, it did make me go and look, which is a good thing. The problem is, I've stopped looking. It becomes "Cry Wolf" and so devalues the feature.

You may have noticed the cog wheel next to CHECK-UP (now all uppercase) and this does take you into settings.

I do love that the developers have, right out of the stocks, added the ability to turn on/off tests and what time you want it to run. So often I've seen developers decide something will happen at a specific time (Netatmo, I'm looking at you!) and not giving the users the opportunity to override.

Events

Also a beta feature.

I quite like the idea of this one. They have been modelling certain kinds of devices to see what would cause water to flow and in what way. It uses AI/ML to do this. I have asked, but at the moment I do not know if the AI/ML is local, or if it is data sent to centre. If it is to centre, then I can't see any way to decide if I want to do that or not, as there is nothing in settings. I'll update when I know.

I will say, however, of the two beta features I think this one has the furthest to go.

You do get an alert for certain things, that you can define.

Again, you can dismiss it, but it would be good if there was an option to go to the Events tab.

You can see that shows items such as a Dishwasher or a Tap. You can then click on the event, and actually say which you think it is. However, when you go back to the Events tab, it still just says the generic name of "Tap", which make sit less useful to me. My hope is that they will get to a point where when you say it is the kitchen tap, for example, it will work out that it is the kitchen tap all the time.

The other thing I've noticed is that, like many British homes, I have a water tank in the attic (Actually 2) and that those long flows of water are actually the tank filling up. I've asked HeroLabs about this, and they tell me it is causing them problems with their modelling, but they are working on it.

Stats

Those issues with classification in the Events tab, also flow through to Stats where I, again, get the generic "Tap". Again, I find this less than useful.

Also, I can't go back a day. I literally can only see THIS day, or THIS week or THIS month, etc. How can I compare a week against another week?

Also, I think HeroLabs have decided to round to the nearest whole % point. I'd like to see at least the first decimal point.

Overall thoughts.

I don't know how long this has been on the market, but after all my nigles I do like the device. I am glad I bought it. I'm particularly looking forward to integrations with Apple Home and Home Assistant.

The beta offerings are interesting, and if they can get them to work, I believe they will be very useful but they are a bit annoying at the moment.