Introduction
Aqua-Scope Technologies is a manufacturer of water leak prevention products located in Germany, China, and Estonia. Sensative and Aqua-Scope have worked together to provide complete water leak prevention solutions where Sensative’s water leak sensors and IoT DiMS platform Yggio complement Aqua-Scope’s valve shutter technology.
Below you find a summary of the case, click here to skip it and go directly to the video.
Why is new technology needed in this field?
Water damage issues common
Water leaks have been a significant concern for homeowners and real estate owners alike for hundreds of years. Even though construction methods, materials, systems, and more have been vastly improved during this time, water leak damage still occurs frequently. It costs owners huge sums in dehumidification, mold treatment, reparations, temporary displacement of residents, insurances, and more.
According to a U.S. Housing Study, 8,1% of all U.S. homes suffer from a plumbing leak each year. That is 1 in every 12th home.
In the U.S. alone, the Insurance Information Institute (2018) estimates that insurance companies annually pay out 13 billion dollars for water damages.
As we can see above, water damages are still a highly prevalent and costly issue that requires modern solutions to be solved. Water damages will always occur somewhere, but this should no longer be such an issue in modern buildings.
Insufficient solutions
Today, there are plenty of solutions on the market for detecting or preventing water damages. The question is, why are they not used more frequently than they are? Aqua-Scope’s Christian Päetz highlights some of the common issues with most available technology, resulting in few people using it.
Challenges
Explanation
Difficult to install
When you do your best to prevent water damage, you might not be so keen on installing clumsy and complicated devices that might actually cause a leak if you are unlucky. Apart from that risk, it can also be overwhelming when devices require complicated connections to other devices to work
Complicated to use
Devices and systems are often difficult to understand. Some solutions might seem very capable for the right person, but if the typical person can not understand how to use them, their overall value remains low.
Requires a certified plumber
As the risk of causing damage instead of preventing it is present with most available prevention technology, a certified plumber is often required to do installations correctly. For this reason, a certified plumber will also be required by most insurance companies when installing complex water prevention solutions.
Cuts into existing wires
Installing devices that cut into existing wiring is certainly not an easy task to perform. Once again, we see a high risk of causing damage instead of fixing it, especially if a non-certified plumber does the installation.
Aqua-Scope’s solutions
What Aqua-Scope has done is to design a valve shutter device, the Ball Valve Servo, which circumvents all issues mentioned above.
Benefits
Explained
Retrofittable
Works on all existing water valves, lever types, butterfly types, and wing types. Customers mount the device on top of any valve in a simple manner, extending the valve instead of modifying it.
No pipe cutting
As the device is mounted directly on top of the valve externally, no pipes need to be cut or modified.
No plumber required
Without the need for cutting pipes or doing any other complex modifications, there is no risk of causing any damage. So no certified and expensive plumber is required by insurance companies. Instead, such an installation has the potential to lower your insurance fees as you reduce the risk of any water damage occurring.
Works in all common environments
The valve shutter is a sturdy device that can withstand and function in challenging environments – Indoor, outdoor, basements, revision shafts, and more.
Smart communication
The Ball Valve Shutter is a smart IoT device that works on the popular Z-Wave protocol, common in consumer smart home installations, and the popular LoRaWAN protocol, common in commercial buildings and smart city installations. For large-scale installations, LoRaWAN is often the most reliable type of radio communication for IoT purposes.
Wireless
As the device works with the wireless radio communication protocols Z-Wave and LoRaWAN, no wires are needed. The device is simply installed and then redo to receive a signal to shut off the water valve when the customer wishes or when any water leaks are detected.
Combined with Sensative’s Strips MS +Drip for LoRaWAN water leak multi-sensors and Sensative’s IoT platform Yggio, Aqua-Scope’s Ball Valve Shutter is a powerful product is easy to use for everyone.
How Sensative products complement Aqua-Scope’s
Strips Drip for Z-Wave
These sensors are excellent for any home installations where a customer might want to monitor for leakages in bathrooms, kitchens, and basements. Place them under the sink, behind the washing machine, or wherever a water leak might occur in the home.
Strips MS +Drip sensors for LoRaWAN
These are sturdy and capable sensors for commercial installations. Apart from water leak detection, the multi-sensors also offer ambient light (LUX), temperature, and open/close monitoring, making them highly versatile, enabling many different use cases. Through the LoRaWAN protocol, the radio signal can travel large distances and challenging routes to the closest gateway without being disrupted. Thanks to the sturdy radio signal, these are also perfect to use in hard-to-reach areas of a building where leaks might occur.
Yggio platform
The Yggio platform is a powerful and highly versatile IoT platform, also known as a DiMS platform (Digital Infrastructure Management System), for any commercial use case. With its horizontal design, acting as a context broker, integration layer, and more, Yggio lets customers choose and combine freely between popular open devices and systems.
The complete Sensative + Aqua-Scope solution
The Ball Valve Shutter is mounted on top of the valve shutter, ready to shut off the water flow when instructed. The customer places Sensative sensors in areas at risk of water damage, ready to detect any signs of leakage. When a sensor detects a water leak, the sensor sends information to the Yggio platform. Scenarios are pre-determined in Yggio so that when a water leak is detected, Yggio sends instructions to the Ball Valve Shutter to turn off the water flow. With such a setup, a water leak can be detected immediately and resolved just as quickly, without any person having to act upon the system or turn off the valve manually when the issue arises.
To learn more about Aqua-Scope Technologies, visit their website @ aqua-scope.com.
Shop for products
Strips MS +Drip sensors can be found directly in our webshop.
For the customer who wants to learn about IoT and try out Sensative’s MS +Drip sensors together with the Yggio platform, we offer a “Starter Kit for Cities” for monitoring water leaks, temperature, doors/windows, and more. A powerful starter kit that works excellently in any commercial building.
If you are interested in buying our solutions in this case or need help tailoring a solution for your specific needs, visit our webshop or contact our sales team to evaluate your possibilities and requirements. We are here to help.
