Phyn - Smart Water Assistant - Matte Black

I was intrigued at the thought of being able to track water use, while also protecting against unexpected leaks. All of which could lead to large bills for use, or to fix any damage done by one. My current water provider sends email digests, and it’s going to be interesting to see how they compare. The unboxing experience was good, however the cardboard insert appears to release some dust, as it was on everything. Included in the box you’ll find the Phyn sensor, an all in one cable that includes the two water sensors, a USB A for power, and USB C for connection to the bottom of the Phyn device. The two water sensors can be used on either hot or cold connections, and the cable allows you to tear away to extend the cable length; same with the power cables. For the purpose of this install, you’ll need to make sure that you have access to hot/cold connections, and a power plug. In my case, I have a dishwasher occupying the plug, so I just connected a surge protector appropriate for under cabinet use. Prior to performing the water shut off, you walk through the app (which is free), and follow the prompts to power on, and connect the device to your WiFi. I can tell you there was some issues with the pairing process for me, and it required that I use the reset pin to restart the process. You will need to make sure that your mobile device with a camera to scan the QR code on the bottom of the Phyn. The account creation will require your name, mobile number (for the SMS notifications), and your physical address to determine usage in the area. Once I was able to successfully pair the device, it will walk you through some slides to begin the physical install of the device. Just make sure to have a large bowl or bucket to capture any water left in the lines. The installation process was fairly straightforward, with my only frustration needing to get around my garbage disposal, and the connections to my water filtration system. Having a wrench makes the install easy, and I didn’t need to apply any plumbers/teflon tape. Once the install is done, you’ll run the power cable to the inside of your cabinet, and affix it to the door. The instructions are actually really clear about these steps, and I had to flip the wall bracket side; which was incredibly easy. Power up took almost no time, but did require a firmware update, which for some reason ran twice, and was successful. The app then walks you through turning on your hot water, which takes a few minutes. This process is normal since the hot water generally does take a bit to come back through the pipes. Once it detects the water temp, it then has you flush a toilet to verify a pressure valve install. This process was also incredibly quick, finishing by the time the toilet bowl refilled with water. The app setup finishes after performing these tests, and when you enter the number of water items around your home (sinks, number of toilets, showers, tubs, etc.). After that’s it’s smooth sailing. You have to select between notifications going through a push, SMS, or both. The calendar view (water plus), gives you a drill down of the number of gallons, and any “events” during the course of the day. You’ll get notifications if your device goes offline for any reason, and when it wants to grab your attention to confirm the sudden use of water is normal. This happened when I turned on a shower upstairs. Over time, the device is supposed to become smarter, able to detect leaks, and anything it considers overuse of water. I’ll be interested to see how it matches up to my current water utilities drill down emails. So far, I haven’t had any major issues, no leaks, and it’s neat looking at the app to see your water pressure and the water temps. The app is incredibly easy to use, and if you do run into a pairing issue, a hardware reset is easily accomplished. For the price, ease of install, and the useful app, this seems like a good first try at getting smart about water use. Some of the notifications might be much, at first, but you’ll find them begin to decrease in frequency as it learns your usage habits.

The Phyn smart water assistant is a very interesting device and I don’t fully understand how it works, but from what the phyn videos that I watched basically say that your homes water pipes are a closed system and when water moves through it, it emits some ultrasonic waves that the Phyn smart water assistant picks up. Over time it can use these waves to determine where the water going to, for how long, and how much water. Say for example, you flush a toilet and that has a certain signature in your pipes. I am currently using version 6.3.0 of the PHYN app and I will speak to my experiences with that version. I do have some issues with it, and in full disclosure, I discovered that I do not have a Pressure Relief Valve installed so my reporting will take longer than the 3 weeks they say. The app makes the installation simple with an easy to follow step by step directions. You will need an unswitched power plug under the sink in which you install, and I had to add an adapter to mine since both of my plugs were being occupied by the dish washer and the garbage disposer. The two sensors were quite easy to install and I only needed a crescent wrench to install these. They fit inline with your water pipes and once you have them in, you just need to be sure they do not leak and the app will remind you to keep an eye out for that. Attaching the sensor to my home Wi-Fi was a breeze and the whole experience was just easy. After a short while the app will start alerting you to water events and will give you a time that the event happened, how long the event lasted for and an estimate for how much water was used and of course where the water was used at. These events seem to show up in the history after about 2 minutes or so and they are not very accurate for the most part (could be due to my lack of PRV). At first, I was getting very strange alerts, but over the course of a week, I would say that it has become more accurate. You do have the ability to “teach” the Phyn Smart water assistant by changing the alert to what you know it to be. For example, if you are running the washing machine and it registers at a toilet flush, then you can change it, and if Phyn gets something right, you can click on it and let Phyn know it got it right as well. I think the more you do that, the faster it will become more accurate. My biggest gripe with the app is when you are looking at your event list, there is no way to “refresh” it, say a swipe down on your screen. I have to exit out the app and go back into it for it to show new events. Hopefully, this will be addressed with an update to the app (v6.3.0). Another benefit of Phyn is that it will alert you to an unusual event, when my irrigation system first was detected, it alerted me via a text message and Push notification that something could be wrong. This is a nice feature to have just incase and it might save you some heartache from a major flood at your house. This unit cannot turn off the water, but it will alert you, Phyn makes a device that can turn off the water and I am very interested in that. Overall, this will give me some peace of mind and its fun to see how much water we use, and this might help us cut back on some usage.

Smart home monitoring is lacking a leader on water usage/leak detection, and Phyn is introducing hardware combined with technology to gain traction. However, this Smart Water Assistant alone is HIGHLY dependent on the user “Teaching” it, and it is somewhat time consuming. If you keep that in mind beforehand, and have the patience - you’ll see some of its potential here easily. Just FYI, we have a backflow preventer/PRV so we didn't have some issues some others mentioned. Install took about an hour, and I had to run an extension cable from the island cabinet as the outlet was not close enough under our sink. As far as getting up and running this reminds me of productivity tracking software I’ve administered in the workplace. The app itself is pretty well designed and intuitive. Once you have it mapped out to all the different water consuming connections - sinks (4) toilets (2) showers (2) dishwasher (1), etc - it becomes a bit easier, but you still have to keep an eye that nothing else is running, and sometimes the gallon consumption seems inaccurate. Waiting to see the water bill from the utility company and also very interested in the shutoff now that we have this. One thing that slightly irked me is if so smart in 2020 why no 5 Ghz? I actually had to enable 2.4 Ghz on my router so we could get connected.

I have an issue with a faucet leak under the sink so I anticipated that with this smart water monitor I would be aware of any potential leak issue if occurs. Quality is super-premium and feels like the company paid attention to the installation to every single detail from mounting to installation. Installation is straightforward, The Pyhn app on smart device provides step by step instruction on how to install and the use of the necessary features from plumbing check to leak alerts and water usage data. I found it very helpful but my only concern is the accuracy of measuring and detecting leaks. I have noticed for two days I keep receiving high flow alert while my no water was used even with training the device by teaching it the type of use such as tub, faucet, spigot.etc.Not sure why it does that because this affects the reliability of the device or it is just a bug in the application. I will keep on eyes on it to determine how my home uses 189-253 gallons for 4 hours and water was not in use during that time. I wish it is just a software bug and not hardware reliability as detection is invalid. With that being said, 80% of the measuring is correct and accurate in terms of water run duration and estimate gallons.

First, and foremost, I purchased this device to protect my home. Water leaks are costly and damaging, and I thought that a device like this would notify me of any leaks. Second, I live in California, where water is scarce and expensive. I was hoping that a device like this would allow me to understand my water usage better. I especially wanted to understand where I was wasting water so that I could conserve (and lower my bill). I have had this product for a month now, and here is what I have experienced so far: 1) It's a well-designed product and the packaging was very nice. 2) Installation was fairly straight-forward. It took about 1.5 hours. I had to use some plumbers tape to keep the connections from leaking. 3) The device regularly (i.e. twice a day) alerts me to "unusual low flows." At first, I was concerned about these, but now I just ignore them. Every leak alert has been a false positive thus far. 4) The device is supposed to determine which plumbing fixtures are using water (and how much). So far, it hasn't been able to properly classify any of this usage. Phyn says that this will get better over time as the system "learns." However, I haven't noticed any improvement in this feature yet. 5) The device is supposed to tell you how much water you are using on a daily basis. Based on my water meter reads, I used about 6000 gallons of water between Jan 10 and Jan 31. My Phyn says that I used ~2430 gallons. Once I turn my irrigation back on in the Spring, it will be interesting to see if Phyn can see any of my outdoor usage. So, in summary, Phyn has not been an effective leak detector or a water usage monitor. I just ignore all of its leak alerts and I can't trust its water usage measurements. I wouldn't recommend purchasing this product right now. Perhaps it will improve in the future.

Reason for grabbing this item is because we have a second house up near my little sister to visit while she's away at college because lodging is so expensive in the area. Unfortunately while we were away we had a leak and the water company called and said we had used $5000 dollars worth of water that month. Outrageous! Went up and installed Phyn with ease. I thought it was going to be a huge box that hooked onto the outside wall but to my surprise it was a small little box and a few connectors and we were up and running. The app is very useful and the format makes everything easy to find and read up on. I'm not sure how accurate it is as of yet because it's only been installed for a few days now and the information did say it's a learning process that you need to give constant feedback to it to make it more accurate. Have high hopes this will be our savior in case of any other costly leaks again beforehand this time! It is a little pricey for what comes in the box so hopefully it earns its keep Would highly recommend this to others

I was surprised at how well the Phyn Water Assistant works. At first, I was confused to how it would notify me. I got Phyn installed which took me about 45 minutes because of the way the plumbing underneath the kitchen sink. You have to place it in a place where there is an outlet. Nevertheless, I got it all connected under an hour. Also downloaded the Phyn app which now it’s monitoring water leaks. Installed both sensors on hot & cold water supply for kitchen sink. Again, it took at least 45 minutes overall. So far so good no leaks with the installation. Unit is working and will notify me if there’s any leaks around the house. This gadget will be very helpful in pinpointing water leaks, but it can get annoying as it notifies me WITH EVERY usage of water: toilet flushes, sink usage, etc.

I was very curious about what this product is all about and after getting it, while it’s great, I don’t see the purpose for the expensive price tag. From what I’ve seen on all the DIY videos, the purpose is to monitor your water supply, and apparently if you get the Plus version, it will automatically turn off in the event of a leaky water pipe or if water is left running —— but I have never once left water running so I don’t really see the huge relief it is providing. It is cool that it is compatible with Alexa and Google, but still, I haven’t once used it yet. You will need to download the Phyn app and connect it to your wifi (same as all the other house monitoring options out here) and of course this is where you get all your notifications that you're using more water than normal, or if there is a leaky pipe somewhere in your home. Here are some quick pros and cons for me: PROS easy installation; someone really broke down every step compatible with Alexa and Google Doesn’t take up much space at all CONS The cheaper version won’t auto shutoff your water in the event of an emergency a few connectivity issues at first as it utilizes transmitters All in all, if you are a high techie nerd like I am sometimes, this will be really cool, but I would not say it is an essential, life changer that everyone should have.