Customer Ratings & Reviews

Things like this, that work, are some of the most exciting things out there....this can save you alot of money, time, and aggravation. I live in a place that has no basement. Our utilities are on the first floor. And every year it seems, no matter how hard I try, something happens with the air conditioner that causes a leak in the closet. Maybe big, maybe small, but that depends upon when I catch it. Since this can babysit the closet for me, I have no worries. The hot water heater has issues from time to time, the air conditioner sometimes, and neither of these can happen because if they get beyond the closet, they'll ruin the floors. So, this is a truly great product to consider, if you want to know about leaks. I also have a 2nd floor laundry room, which is another source of concern. And over the years, I have had problems under my kitchen sink with the garbage disposal leaking - not alot, but enough. And one time, the hot water heater was leaking and we could not see it, it was leaking under the baseboards and into the living room, which then caused carpet mushrooms. Yes, disgusting, but true. You would never have seen them until you moved the couch to see it. I don't move the couch often enough I guess, but who does. Use these amazing devices to babysit the water leaks for you. As an added bonus, they can monitor temperature and humidity as well, and notify you of that. These do NOT require a subscription to maintain alerts. Seriously! So buy it and not pay an annoying monthly subscription for monitoring. Nothing could be better! I have water detectors that are part of my monitored alarm system, but they pale in comparison to these. These are most like a hockey puck in size, and are meaty. They will stay where you put them. Many water sensors do not do that. These have 3 wide contact points so a few drops won't set them off. They use 2 AA batteries and are easy to replace by twisting the back plate off. Also, they have a built in sounder and blinking light. So even if you don't have a text on your phone, you'll hear them beeping for sure - it ramps up the tone to 94db or so it says. You won't miss it. The installation of them was easy - put the batteries in and put them where you want them. The setup in the app didn't follow the instructions, I could not scan the QR code with success, it didn't like the number but you can skip that step. And it didn't always like the WIFI network settings part, but I could skip that too. It wanted my exact address, which I didn't use, they don't know where I have installed them..seems apps these days are data mining and I don't like that. But you can put in any address, even a generic one, and move on. That is what I did. Tested them out, worked fine, and have gotten notifications on my phone both as text and push notifications. Simple and easy. I will be purchasing more of these because I like the way they operate - they are heavy enough to stay put, and get a sense of confidence about them. NOTE: There are two black circles on the side of the side of the detectors. One is a switch and the other is the temp/humidity sensor cover I suppose.....the switch is important because if you are like me, you might not have seen the actual switch and were trying to press the sensor that wasn't working thinking they had a bad switch. But alas, the switch is a switch, just keep spinning it around. I'll include pics of both below for reference. One missing feature I wish I could do, was to do an on-demand update to see current temp/humidity levels, not when it last auto-updated. I don't like this, but I'll go with it; best thing out there that I know of, maybe they'll add that feature in the future. There is the ability to get the Phyn whole house water shut off switch, and ultimately stop the flow of water, if you desire. My issues are mostly with the air conditioner and that won't help, but for anyone who is concerned about this, and automating a vacation home for example, would prove worthy the first time a water leak was detected.

I have five of these. Accidentally tested when changing water filter (small leak). Device saw leak and water shut off automatically. Minor: One of the devices sometimes doesn't connect to WiFi, but fixes itself next day. Could be location just has poor WiFi so not fault of the sensor. Photo is the connected Phyn Plus.

out of the box, these look good, its nice that there's 3 spread out sensor probes compared to other brands where they're close together. QR code would not work out of the box, neither would entering the code manually. Had to resort to the manual wifi pair method, which while annoying, worked easily. on top of push and text alerts, there's also a speaker so you can be alerted if you're in house but not near your phone. a nice addition compared to other water sensors is the temperature and humidity sensors. you can set thresholds to alert you when the humidity rises above a certain point or dips below as well as when temperature reaches a certain point so you don't get caught off guard by potential freezing pipes can't speak to the actual longevity of the battery yet, but it does promise two years i would also prefer it connected to google home so i can monitor it along with my other brands of sensors in one place

The Phyn (2-Pack) Water Sensors are intriguing products with limited usefulness by themselves. They are packaged neatly and with minimal materials, yet it’s inviting. The 2 sensors are stacked atop each other but on different “shelves.” The requisite batteries are similarly given their own shelf. Besides the batteries, there are no other enclosures except for a too-brief foldout guide. The sensors themselves are a matte black about 3.5” diameter and 1” height. They “sit” on three small brass pegs (see picture) that are the contacts for water detection. The sensors connect to a phone or tablet via Wi-Fi, more about which later. Additionally, and likely more usefully, the sensors can be connected to several other products by this company, including a whole-house water shutoff in case of a detected leak. Getting started was a challenge. The instructions tell the user to insert the batteries, and it can take a little detective work to figure out how. Eventually one discovers a very small dark-gray dot on the black underside (see circle in picture). Twisting the cover to the left a few degrees opens the battery case. In order to use the sensors, naturally one must download an app which installed quickly and easily from the Play Store. It’s clean and functional in appearance, if not in use. Going through the app setup—connecting the sensors to it—was tedious and at times frustrating. The app automatically opens a QR reader which is supposed to expedite setup. The gray (again) QR was not detectible by the app under a variety of lighting scenarios. The developers must have understood this problem as the app gives the user the option to skip the step and manually enter the information. Again, the app seemed flawed as it put me in a loop (during several tries on both sensors) to enter the registration code number imprinted (again in dark gray) below the useless QR symbol. Again, developers must know of this as there is an escape: “skip this step.” Once the app is linked to the devices and the Wi-Fi network—again a tedious, repetitious process—the sensors work. The user has the option to established preferred notification thresholds (both high and low) for temperature and humidity. The app’s display of this information is clear and somewhat interesting. It could be a real benefit, for example, if the user were not at home for a sustained period and the temperature dropped sufficiently to freeze pipes. As for water detection, the primary function, the devices respond nearly instantaneously. When water is detected the sensors dimly flash red, beep, and send a text to the phone. Response was excellent, but I could not detect the claimed 90 db aural notification. The beeping sounded puny and did not, as I expected, get louder over time. The text message was clear as to location. Overall, nicely packaged and manufactured, but with plenty of annoyances and limited utility. The text messages are helpful and could facilitate a quick user response. However, were the phone not connected to Wi-Fi or data, in airplane mode, or off the warning would go unnoticed. In sum, I felt these were meant to be part of a larger system, especially the whole-home shutoff device. As stand-alones, they are mediocre.

I’ve been looking for a device to monitor a few places in my home where I feel water may potentially leak: the hot water heater (14 yrs old) room and another closet where I have a water filter and softener installed. Many of the water sensor’s I’ve seen on amazon seem to be no name brand from overseas. I’m a bit wary about installing these apps on my phone and allowing them to access my wifi, security can be lacking or even provide a backdoor to foreign companies. These PHYN sensors seem to be made by a reputable company. They have other products as well including a device that can detect water usage and shut off the main valve if needed! The PHYN water sensors are fairly small, about the size of a hockey puck. Setup was very easy, simply unscrew the base in insert 2 of the included AA batteries. There’s a rubber gasket around the bottom of the device to seal out water. On the base cover, there’s a hole in case you want to hang the sensor, not sure where this would be useful though. The app walks you through the setup process, it’s fairly simple, although the QR code setup method did not work for me. Neither did the entering in the code on the device. I had to resort to connecting the device wifi and setting up that way. Once connected, I placed the devices in my basement. I didn’t realize these would also read the temperature and humidity levels, it’s like 3 devices in 1! The humidity measurement is important to me, since I’m using the basement as a home office. The readings aren’t real time though, seems to be hourly readings; I’m guessing have the sensors update more often will shorten battery life. As far as sensing water, they work great! I licked my fingers and connected the contacts on the bottom of the device and it sensed the moisture and sent me a text message right away. I’m not sure how accurate the humidity readings are. Its readings are consistently higher than a device I have that reads the temp and humidity levels. Right now after it refreshed, I checked the temp and humidity levels on my digital thermometer/humidity gauge, Dyson app readings and the PHYN sensor. The humidity readings were not very consistent with the 3 devices; I believe the PHYN is reading higher than it really is. ThermoPro Digital gauge: 72.7 temp/60% humidity Dyson: 75 temp/54% humidity PHYN: 72 temp/68% humidity Even with the variance in humidity readings, I would still recommend these to anyone that is looking for some peace of mind when it comes to water leaks. They’re reasonably priced, the app is very straightforward and easy to understand.

I am a member of Best Buy’s Technical Insider Network, TIN for short. Reviewers in this invitation-only program are provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews. = Why did I get this? = My home was built back in the 1980’s; well back before foundations were built with water management in mind. As a result, my foundation has a few leaks that I have had to deal with over the years. The foundation also allows water to penetrate my basement in the form of water vapor. I leverage the free space in my basement as living space. Temperature and humidity are controlled via a heat pump. However, my heat pump is incapable of communicating to me metrics regarding temperature and humidity. The Phyn Smart Water sensor solves both issues for me; to a point. = Device Placement = I have two Phyn Smart Water Sensors. My plan is to place one in my furnace room around the area that water bleeds through my basement wall when the ground is heavily saturated with water. The spot has been patched several times over the years producing various levels of success. The furnace room also serves as extra storage space. I want to keep an eye on both relative humidity, temperature, and I want to be alerted if water enters the area. You will notice in one of my photos that the water sensor has three copper-colored feet. If two of the three feet contact water then a text alert is sent to my cell phone, an audible alarm sounds, and the Phyn logo on the top of the water sensor will pulsate red in time with the alarm. I tested the unit by pouring water on the floor next to the unit. The alarm was loud enough to hear if I was in general proximity of the sensor. It does not need to be as loud as a smoke detector because it also sends out text alerts when an issue is detected. The second sensor is monitoring my living space. This is the space that gets the direct benefits of the dehumidification from my heat pump. I want to track the difference in humidity between the furnace room and my functional space so that I can make changes to the way air flows between the spaces. This will allow me to maximize the efficiency of my heat pump’s dehumidification feature. This should allow me better control over the entire environment. I placed this second sensor on a shelf midway in the room. = Setup = You need to download Phyn’s software to setup and use the water sensor. I am using software version 7.5.3 at the time of this review. Attached to this review is a photo of the entire user’s manual. There is a web address in the manual if you need more help. If you are like me, then you will need to go to Phyn’s site to find the words to the magical enchantment necessary to remove the battery cover. I have included a photo of the unit with the battery cover removed. I hope it helps. The instruction manual skips the part telling you how to remove the battery cover. There is a little arrow on the bottom of the unit that indicates that that the cover twists off. This arrow is molded into the case, it is shallow, and it is very hard to see. And this theme repeats itself later in the setup. Next, start up the application and follow the setup instructions. You will need to create an account before you can connect the water sensor to your home network. Why this is important is beyond me. Oh, and if the account registration fails then you will never know because neither Phyn nor the app will tell you. This is how I found out that you need an active, logged on account activate the water sensor and connect it to my home network. Once your account is active, setup is fairly easy. There is a button on the side of the unit. Pressing the button puts the water sensor into setup mode. Just follow the onscreen instructions. The water sensor has a 3D barcode on the bottom of each unit. You scan this with your phone’s camera. However, the 3D barcode has poor contrast with the background when your cell phone light flashes on it. It took me a few minutes to discover that I had to photograph the barcode from an angle. Otherwise, my cell phone’s flash washed out the barcode enough to make the barcode unreadable. Finally, I setup a “home” for each water sensor, set my tolerances for alerts, and finally set my water sensor’s metrics capture frequency to 3 times a day. This is the worst for battery setting for battery life. But, I live in an area where humidity and air temperature can change drastically on a daily basis. I can always dial it back if I see a consistent pattern over the course of a month or two. = Metrics and Reports = The metrics are simple. The unit captures two data points at every reading: Humidity and Temperature. Go into the app to read the data point. The data points are plotted on a small graph that shows the trend for both temperature and humidity over time. I can also review any alerts triggered by water or if either of the two data points are outside of my established tolerances. Please see my screenshot for an example of the alerts page and the graphs The app allows you to setup multiple water sensors. But Phyn decided that each sensor must be in a different physical location such as “Home 1” and “Home 2”. This is even true if I have sensor in different rooms at the same geographical location. The application will enforce this rule even if both sensors share the same physical street address. The graphs are tiny. They cannot be expanded. And the rotation of the screen has no impact on the size or number of data points I can see on the screen. I have no idea how this app will operate if I want to see multiple months of data. It could be useful to not only see multiple months of data but to also see multiple months of data from multiple sensors in the same home all from the convenience of a single screen. I do like that the sensor will send me a text if an issue is detected. However, the data points are collected so far apart that, other than water on the floor, it could take up to 24 hours before I know if my room temperature or humidity have passed beyond my pre-defined threshold. So, if you considering this product put in a room where tight humidity control is a must, then this is not the product for you. There are other products on the market that will take up to the minute readings of air quality, temperature, and humidity. However, those items are less flexible location wise because those products do not operate on batteries. = Final Thoughts = The Phyn water sensor is a set and forget device. It does exactly what the manufacturer claims it does. I would like to see some improvements with the app and the setup instructions. I want to be able to look at the sensors of my home from a single screen so I can know immediately if there is anything I need to address. As is, I feel that I am spending too much time navigating screens and not getting the most out of the data. I also would like the option of capturing more data points throughout the day. Three times a day is just too few for me to get a good picture of the environment.

The Phyn Smart Water Sensors are a nice addition to your smart home adding a piece of mind. These puck size units fit almost anywhere you need them where there is a potential concern of water leaks, including underneath your dishwasher. These pucks not only have water detection but they also have sensors that measure temperature and humidity. The humidity sensor is a nice addition to help prevent risk of mold. As for the water detection, there are three tiny metal prongs on the bottom of the unit. Based on my testing, all three prongs must be in contact with water. Therefore, units placed on a flat surface would benefit with early detection. Once water has been detected, the unit makes a chime as well as the mobile app sends a notification. The mobile app is decent, providing basic information such history of temperature and humidity and access to alerts and what has been resolved. But where this app fails is the set up. The instructions that come with the unit tells you to download the mobile app and follow the set up instructions. Well following the mobile instructions simply don’t work. The instructions will ask you to scan the QR code on the bottom of the unit but an error will occur indicating it is an invalid QR code. Instead of scanning the code, you can opt to enter in the 6 character code manually, not a problem if this actually worked. I had contacted customer service and they say the solution is easy and that you have to click “continue without entry key”. Only then are you brought to a screen with proper instructions. This is terrible as no one will assumes you need to skip the first two code options, why have those prompts? That is just confusing and a waste of time and creates frustration. Even after you get to the correct screen for setup, there are still flaws. After I set up the first unit, there is a prompt to add another device, so upon proceeding, this ends up creating a new home location which is wrong. You then need to switch between “homes” to see both devices. I had to then delete the 2nd home and add a new device to the first home. So once again the flow of the app set up does not make sense. This product is a good concept they just need to fix their app set up. I feel the app was rushed and poorly executed. Until they fix the flow of the app set up, I wouldn’t recommend this product.

I've heard horror stories from homeowners about pipes leaking or basements flooding. Many of these cases could have been prevented had the homeowner known sooner. In my own home, I've previously set up a camera on my water heater to check on potential leak situations while I've been on vacation, but would rather have had some kind of device that would alert me if there were any issues. This is where Phyn comes in. Setup was simple: you only need to install the included batteries, download the app, connect your phone to the Phyn puck's wifi, and then follow the easy steps on the app. The second puck had a shortcut to add it to the app via QR code, which seemed likely to make the process simpler, but unfortunately it didn't work out that way. Neither scanning the QR code nor typing the code in was successful; I received an error message. I like that I can modify the alert settings based on humidity (below and above points) and temperature. You can also set push notifications, text notifications, or both. I also liked being able to see fluctuations in the humidity and temperature over a period of time. Pros: battery operated/portable, easily connects to wifi, simple to use Cons: hiccup with shortcut setup, no option for cellular service (problematic if wifi signal is lost) Overall for the price and peace of mind, the Phyn is well worth it and I would recommend it.

I have a basement door that is flush with the ground outside. When we have rain, it will often run in under the door. I am not down there often so I don't always think to check for water. This "puck" is just the thing I needed to keep a watch on the door! It was easy to download the app and connect it to my wifi. I have not had a big rain since putting it down there but I am almost looking forward to it so I can really see how this works. The app gives me constant readings of temperature and humidity. I have a second sensor and have not decided where I will put that one. What a great peace of mind for water prone areas!

The hocky-puck shaped Phyn Smart Water Sensor alerts you to water leaks. It can also alert you on high humidity and low/high temperatures. It works good with Phyn app and can send text alerts. It works with home WiFi. An attachment (a cord with a small sensor) can be added to increase the area of monitoring.

We added these to the Phyn smart shutoff valve we installed about a year ago. They're responsive and relatively easy to set up. Less than a week after installing them, our water heater valve released some pressure. The sensor immediately alerted both of our phones and turned off the whole house water. The only downside we can find is that the Phyn system will only support 10 devices, with the shutoff valve counting as one of the 10. I highly recommend purchasing the nodes to double the coverage of each puck sensor. Each sensor can support another node (there's a little plug for it on the side that looks similar to the power button). We were able to monitor 3 different double vanities using this strategy (ran the cord between the vanity cabinets by drilling a small hole in the back of the wall between them) but I'm still disappointed in the limit because some areas of our home aren't as protected and a lot more water will have to flow where it's not supposed to to reach them. I don't want black cords running in places they can be seen so unfortunately the nodes will only help in certain areas. We turned off the humidity and temperature alerts as they didn't seem to be accurate in our home (high humidity in a third floor bath area in December temperatures) and just caused false alarms for us.

I have an older water heater and instead of replacing it now, I thought I could get extra milage by buying this. The way you can tell if a water heater is going is if it leaks, and it seems like a waste to replace it early. Having said that it was fairly inexpensive, and I put it under the water heater, and it will send me texts if the detects water, high pr low humidity, or temperature is too low. Runs on 2 batteries, and easy to connect to the network. Good price for the extra protection.

Seems like a nice product until it got wet and stopped working! It was easy to set up the Wi-Fi feature is very nice. But it started beeping because of high humidity alert and beeps for 18 hours straight until we were able to get to it after the battery had died. There was no way to turn off the alert remotely. Then there was actually a leak which leaked on top of the unit and apparently did something to stop it from working all together. We totally dried it out, replaced the batteries and did everything we could but could not get it to work again. It seems like a leak detector should be compatible with water and not harmed by it. So beware if you are putting it in any place where it could be wet from the top and not just sense water below it.

Puck protection These are super helpful and will make a perfect gift to my children Provide a nice sense of security

Great product, I wished it had the option to use batteries o s power supply.

Haven’t had an incident yet but the humidity sensor is handy

Difficult to maintain connection with WiFi. Attempts to reconnect became a losing fight.

This smart water sensor had high ratings in several independent publications. I purchased it on that basis. It works well and the low price also makes it a great value.

Phyn Smart Water Sensors (Pack of Two) These Phyn Smart Water Sensors, which resemble hockey pucks, work with your home's Wi-Fi system to provide constant monitoring of an area (single unit) or areas (multiple units) that you feel may be susceptible to water leakage. I normally don’t comment on package design, but the organization of this package of two Sensors is about as good as it gets. Everything is right in front of you, stacked in the order needed. That means you don’t have to root around in the box for things like instructions and parts. It’s a very clever package design and is certainly a nice feature, Four AA batteries are included in an “Open me first” package at the very top of the box so that you don’t overlook them. Phyn states that you can receive up to two years of battery life by customizing the settings in the downloadable Phyn App. You can also get alerted when it’s time to change them out. I did encounter a problem when trying to install the batteries. The instructions told me to “Remove the battery cover from the Pfyn Water Sensor, then insert AA Batteries”. However, there were no instructions telling me how to remove the Sensor cover to insert the batteries, and it really wasn’t obvious, as you’d expect. I had to call Customer Service for help (they answered promptly and were very helpful). I ended up inserting the tip of a letter opener into a slot on the back of the device to get it to turn, and then open, so that I could then insert the batteries. (I would recommend that instructions on how to open the cover be included in any future revisions, since it certainly wasn’t obvious how to do it in this case.) The getting started instructions also tell you to download their app (available for both Android and Apple). Once downloaded and installed, the app starts guiding you through the setup. While the Water Sensor allows for custom settings for both humidity and temperature, I chose the default settings. In another step in the setup process, the app failed to automatically scan the QR Code on the back of the first device when I was instructed to do so, and there was no place to manually tell it to “Scan” once I had it lined up properly. Then, to add to my frustration, the app failed to recognize the correct scan code number when I manually entered it correctly multiple times, again when instructed to do so. The app did allow me to skip that step, and after numerous failed tries, I gave up and did so. Next comes naming the device or area where it will be monitoring (water heater, in my case) and then setting it up on your network. Follow the app instructions and the first device will be connected. You can then perform a test to make sure that it’s working properly. It sends both a visual signal and a beeping sound. I also got messages on my phone, letting me know that it was set up properly and monitoring the assigned area. I then repeated the steps and set up the second device to monitor my washing machine area. Ironically, these Sensors actually create a bit of a dichotomy. On the one hand, you hope you’ll never need to use them (that would mean they’re alerting you to problems). On the other hand, though, you ARE actually using them on an ongoing basis, because they’re giving you the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your chosen areas are being monitored on a continuing basis. So in this case, no news is good news, and they’re working silently on your behalf. While I think that there is room for improvement in the instructions and what appears to be a bug in the app in reading the QR code, once you’ve persevered and got them up and running, these water sensors should provide you with the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your areas of concern are being monitored on a continual basis.

The Phyn Smart Water Sensor is a device none of us hope to ever need then reality sets in and you have a broken water heater, frozen pipe or a flooded basement. The most difficult part of using this device is setting up the app and that took less than five minutes. The sensor device is about the size of a hockey puck and uses two AA batteries which are included. Inserting the batteries is simple, spin the bottom cover to the left and it pops right off, insert the batteries and put it back. There is a rubber gasket to seal the unit. Download the app and follow the step by step instructions. Setting up the account was straight forward. The initial device setup not so much. The app tells you to push the button on the device then scan the QR code. This is where I ran into some trouble. The QR code was not recognized by the app. Skipping this step it asks to enter the QR number, this too was not recognized. Skipping this step you had to change your phone wifi to the sensor’s signal which while cumbersome, worked. The sensor not only detects the presence of water but also monitors the temperature and humidity, making this a great device for an unattended basement - although the sensor does not report to the app in real time. Temperature is monitored and alerts are sent when the temp goes below your selected setting to prevent pipes from freezing. Humidity alerts are sent when humidity goes above or below your selected range, intended to help you avoid mold growth. The Phyn app is pretty basic and easy to use. It shows any alerts, temperature and humidity levels based on your battery selection. There really isn't much more it needs to do. In the app settings you have three reporting levels to choose from. All provide immediate notification when water is present or your temperature or humidity levels exceed your selections. Low Power which only sends alerts when a problem is detected. This is supposed to provide a 2-year battery life. Occasional update which reports temperature and humidity once per day. This is supposed to provide a 1-2 year battery life. Frequent Update which reports temperature and humidity three times per day. This setting is supposed to provide up to a one-year battery life. Testing the device for water alerts, it sent an alert within 30 seconds of detection and followed up with a second alert to notify that water was no longer detected. Having a home with an older hot water heater and a basement that occasionally has water leakage after hard rains, I really like the Phyn Smart Water Sensors and the two pack is reasonably priced, providing a reliable piece of mind. It is important to note that this device does require Wi-Fi to work so if your router is several floors away you might need an extender. The device does beep on alert but unless you are in the room you won't hear it as it's not loud like a smoke detector. It really does rely on the app for notification. I gave four stars for the setup issue and lack of a louder “siren” alert. Yes, I highly recommend the Phyn Smart Water Sensor for every homeowner, especially for 2nd or vacation homes where you might not be present all the time.