Strips Drip for LoRaWAN

1Introduction

Strips Drip raises an alarm as soon as water reaches the absorbent pads on its blue plate. It also measures temperature and can warn before pipes freeze. It is only 6 mm thick, plate included, and copes with damp places, so it fits where leaks start: under sinks and appliances, along pipe runs, in cellars, plant rooms and roof spaces.

It works with any LoRaWAN network server (LoRaWAN 1.0.4, class A, OTAA) and reaches up to 10 km in line of sight. The battery is built in and lasts well over ten years. Leak alarms are sent confirmed, so they are repeated until the network server has received them.

What's in the box

• Strips Drip, with the adhesive already on the back
• The blue pad plate with two absorbent pads. It usually comes separate. Some customer variants have it fitted.
• One or two magnets on the sensor. They keep it in transport mode until you start.
• The LoRaWAN keys (DevEUI, JoinEUI and AppKey). They come on a label in the box and also by e-mail.

No tools or screws are needed. The +Clip mounting accessory is sold separately.

Parts of the sensor

2Before you start

A LoRaWAN sensor needs a little more preparation than a sensor that pairs with a hub. Have this ready first:

You need

• A LoRaWAN gateway within range, powered on and online
• An account on a LoRaWAN network server (for example The Things Network, ChirpStack, Loriot or Actility), with the gateway added to it
• The keys for the sensor: DevEUI, JoinEUI (also called AppEUI) and AppKey
• The region printed on the sensor's label (for example EU868 or US915). The network server and the gateway must use the same region. In US915 and AU915, they must also use the same sub-band.
• The Strips payload decoder in your network server or application, so the messages can be read (see Support)

Choosing the place

• Where water collects first: flat on the floor under sinks, dishwashers, washing machines, pipe joints and boilers. In a cellar, choose the lowest point.
• Indoors or sheltered outdoors: the sensor is IP67, but should not lie under water for long
• Range: up to 10 km in open line of sight, much less through walls and floors
• No metal: do not mount Strips directly on metal, magnetic surfaces or inside a metal structure. If it has to go on metal, put padding between them. A metal cabinet base counts.

3Step by step: from box to ready

Nine steps. Register the sensor in the network server before you take the magnets off. Then join it, choose what it should report, and mount it last.

3

Join the network

Take every magnet off the sensor. Strips leaves transport mode and sends a join request.

If the magnets have already been off, or you are joining the sensor again, start the join with the magnet instead: move it to the rounded end three times, for three green blinks.

Done when: a short green blink shows the join request was sent, and a few seconds later one long green blink confirms the join. The network server now shows the device as joined, with its first messages.

Five short red blinks means the join failed. See Troubleshooting: the usual causes are wrong keys, the wrong region or sub-band, or no gateway in range.

Calibration happens twice. A preliminary calibration is made when the magnets come off and the sensor joins: hold the sensor by its ends, and do not touch the capacitive pads that run along the long sides in the middle of the sensor. The second calibration is made two hours after the sensor connected to the network. By then it must be on its plate, mounted in its final place, and completely dry: that sets the base level for the leak sensor. So fit the plate straight after the join (next step) and mount the sensor within two hours. If you miss that, calibrate again with a downlink (see Recalibrating).

4

Fit the pad plate

Fit the plate straight after the join. It cannot go on earlier, because the tape that holds the transport magnets runs round the sensor. Two hours after the join, Strips Drip calibrates again, and it must then be on its plate, mounted in its final place, with the pads dry. If your sensor came with the plate already fitted, skip this step, but still mount it within two hours.

1. Peel the film off the adhesive on the back of Strips.
2. Press Strips onto the side of the plate marked STRIPS SIDE.

4Using the sensor

What it reports

• Water leak: an alarm (confirmed) when the flood value passes the alarm level, and again when it clears
• Flood value: 0 (dry) to 100 (soaked), once a day and during a leak
• Temperature: frost and high alarms, reports or averages
• Battery level and heartbeat: once a day by default. A new sensor shows 99 %, which means full.

After a leak

• Leave the sensor where it is. Remove the water, and the pads dry by themselves. A cloth round the pads speeds this up.
• Drying takes at least 24 hours, and longer after a lot of water. The pads only detect water reliably again once they are dry.
• The sensor keeps working after a leak and can detect leaks again and again for its whole battery life.
• Do not leave it submerged for long periods.

Damp places: adjusting the alarm level

In a damp place, such as a cellar, a crawl space or a plant room, the pads never get completely dry. The flood value (0 = dry, 100 = soaked) then rests above 0, and with the default alarm level of 10 % the sensor can raise false alarms. Set the level to suit the place:

1. Calibrate in place first. With the sensor mounted where it will stay, and as dry as it gets there, calibrate it (see Recalibrating). The resting value then becomes the base.
2. Watch the flood value for a few days. The Liquid Leak and Frost Alarm profile reports it once a day. To see it more often, set the Flood Report Interval to, for example, 60 minutes. Note the highest value in normal conditions.
3. Set the alarm level above it. Set the Flood Alarm Threshold Level clearly above the highest normal value: if it rests around 10 %, try 20–30 %. Keep the Flood Alarm Hysteresis a few per cent, so the alarm clears once the pads dry. Do not go higher than needed: a small leak must still pass the level.
4. Send the settings. In the Config Tool, choose the profile, change the two settings, copy the payload and send it as a downlink on port 11. Then send an uplink with the magnet. Status code 0300 confirms.
5. Turn the Flood Report Interval off again if you only turned it on for this. Frequent reports cost battery.

Confirmed messages and network outages

Alarms are sent confirmed: Strips waits for an acknowledgement from the network server. If none arrives, for example because the gateway is off, Strips goes into resend mode. It tries again after 1, 2, 4, 8 minutes and so on, up to once a day. After 7 days without an acknowledgement, Strips resets itself and goes into standby (see below).

Operating modes

Strips cannot be switched off. Once the magnets have been removed, it can go back into transport mode only if it has never joined. This applies if the join failed, or if the magnets were put back before it sent a join request.

LED signals

You can turn the LED down with the LED Level setting: all events (default), user actions and errors only, or very limited.

5Magnet commands

You give commands by moving a magnet at the rounded end of Strips. Use the magnet that came with it, or any small magnet.

6Maintenance and removal

Battery

The battery is built in and lasts well over ten years. It cannot be replaced. Frequent reporting, a weak link and high spreading factors all shorten it. To get the most out of it:

• Mount Strips away from metal, within good reach of a gateway
• Report only what you need. The profiles in the Config Tool are tested for battery life.
• Keep the poll intervals at their defaults unless you need faster response

In the cold, the battery level can read lower than it really is. This is expected: the reading takes the temperature into account and does not show the real charge.

The battery is a lithium manganese dioxide (LiMnO₂) cell, one of the most stable lithium chemistries. Do not open the sensor, and do not puncture it or heat it above +80 °C. When the battery is empty, dispose of the whole sensor as a battery, for recycling. Near the end of its life the battery normally swells a little; this is expected.

Recalibrating the leak sensor

Calibrate again if the sensor was not on its plate, mounted and dry when it calibrated two hours after the join, or if you move it. Over time, dust and humidity can also make a dry sensor report some moisture, or even a false alarm. Make sure the pads are completely dry and the sensor is in its place. Then send the downlink 011900000000 on port 11, and send an uplink with the magnet. Check afterwards that the reported flood value is close to 0.

Removing Strips

Use dental floss or a thin string.

Moving to another network server

1. Delete the device from the old network server.
2. Reset Strips with the magnet.
3. Register it in the new network server and join it again.

The settings stay in the sensor.

7Troubleshooting

8Technical reference

For integrators. The Strips LoRa Config Tool builds the downlinks, and the payload decoder reads the uplinks. Both are linked under Support.

Ports and factory settings

Status codes

After a configuration downlink, Strips answers with one of these codes:

Reports

Settings

The settings that apply to Strips Drip, as in the Config Tool.

9Specifications

10Support

• Strips LoRa Config Tool, which creates the configuration downlinks: strips-lora-config-app.service.sensative.net
• Payload decoder (open source): github.com/Sensative/strips-lora-translator-open-source
• Support, FAQ and downloads: sensative.com/support
• Product page and product sheet: sensative.com/sensors/strips-drip
• Technical support request: through the form on the support page

Sources: Sensative Docs, Strips for LoRaWAN pages, FAQ Strips LoRaWAN, Troubleshooting Guide Strips LoRaWAN and +Switch (read 24 October 2026); Strips LoRa Config Tool (profiles, reports and settings); Rev B datasheets; specifications from the sensative.com product data.