The Wi-Fi Water Leak & Freeze Detector detects three things:
- The presence of water (puddles)
- Humidity in the air
- Air temperature
The presence of water is detected by two metal rings on the bottom of the leak detector. When these rings both come in contact with water, an electrical circuit is closed and the alarm will sound. The leak detector also sends an alert to the Roost Cloud via your Wi-Fi connection. The Roost Cloud sends an alert to your smartphone whether you are on Wi-Fi or have cellular data active. You do not need to be in your home to receive this alert.
Inside the device are sensors for humidity and temperature (integrated circuits). These can measure and track humidity and temperature independent of water leaks. The device takes humidity and temperature readings every 30 minutes, and records these levels if they have changed from the previous levels. The leak detector contacts the Roost Cloud if the temperature or humidity go out of the ranges that you have set, and you will receive an alert on your smartphone. Otherwise, the leak detector contacts the Roost Cloud every 24 hours and updates temperature and humidity information. You can view the activity of your leak detector in your Roost app (see image below).
Please note that the humidity alert setting has nothing to do with detecting water leaks. It is only for detecting humidity, for example, in a basement, where mold might become an issue if a de-humidifier stopped working.
If, for example, you set a desired Humidity range of 27% to 63%, the Roost leak detector will notify you when the humidity is outside of that range.
If you tap on your leak detector tile in the home page of your Roost app, then tap 'Activity', you can see your device's recent activity: