I’m a Dad. When I run a bath I hang around waiting for it to run. Usually I grab my guitar or my Rubik’s cube and play around for a bit. Most of the time I lose track of time and find my bath is “overflowing” by the time I realise I should still be keeping an eye on it.

My kids are the same, usually they don’t wanna bath, they’re playing games or something.

So I got a couple of Tuya water leak sensors off Ali for £4 each, one for each bath.

I installed mine yesterday on the back of a basket that we keep bath things in hanging from the shower. I’ve run the wire down, around the taps and a dab of glue on the back of the sensor to stick it just below the overflow.

Now when my bath water touches it, all my bedroom, kitchen and front room lights will flash for a second and my GH speakers will announce that my bath is run.

I plan to do the same with my kids’ bath, I just need to find somewhere to put the sensor.

It’s an idea I’ve had for ages. Next idea is to have one placed in the downpipe from my guttering so that I get notified when it’s raining, saving my washing from getting wet. We live in the UK so rain is pretty common.

Any other creative uses for normal sensors? Share them here for the community.

  • @[email protected]English
    32•1 year ago

    The best thing I ever did with home automation and children is to setup motion sensors in the hallway and tie it to my WLED strips. If anyone in the house leaves a bedroom at night, led light strips in the hallway, along the stairs, and downstairs turn on low and red for 5 minutes. There’s no turning on lights or forgetting to turn them off. It’s bright enough to see but not so bright that is jarring. Also, using red light doesn’t kill your night vision when you go back to a dark room.

    • LifeBandit666OPEnglish
      8•1 year ago

      Yeah I have a very similar idea going on, all the hallway lights are on motion sensors and I use Adaptive Lighting to turn them on Night Mode when everyone goes to bed.

      I have 3 spots in the hallway outside the kids rooms and they used to wake the youngest up when he was smaller so I have 2 of those not work at night so just the furthest from his room comes on low brightness, enough to see by but not enough to wake him.

      I love my Hallway motion sensors. We live in a 4 storey town house with the kitchen (and washing machine) on the ground floor and it used to be a right ballache carrying washing from the ground floor to my bedroom, turning lights on and off all the way up with hands full. Nowadays it’s as simple as walking