Flood Detection System

A notification system that will alert you when water is detected in any area of your home.

BeginnerFull instructions provided3 hours2,291

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Particle Photon

Breadboard (generic)

Jumper wires (generic)

Software apps and online services

IFTTT Maker service

ATOMIOT

Story

With The Water Specialists' Flood Detection System you'll never have to worry again about water issues in your home. Place the sensor anywhere that you foresee a water leak occurring and be alerted through your smartphone as soon as water is detected. Give yourself that extra piece of mind while you're on vacation or just at work that your house is dry.

Pictured below is the setup of the two particle photons. The particle with the wires coming out of it is the one used to sense the presence of water and publish an event to the cloud. The second particle can be placed anywhere you'd like and will illuminate the D7 LED when water is detected by the first particle. An IFTTT notification is also sent to your cell phone when the first particle detects water and publishes the event of Flood_status with event contents of "Hey! Your basement is flooding!" to the cloud.

The following picture shows how the sensor wires are positioned in order to detect water. The water completes the circuit when both wires are submerged in it. These wires can be positioned anywhere you would like to keep an eye on the presence of water. The tape was our method of keeping the wires in place but they can be held in place using other methods. The wires can also be any length you desire so that the particle can be placed a safe distance from the area where there is a possibility of water.

Watch the particle detect water, publish an event to the cloud and notify the homeowner here.

The following picture is an example of the graphing portion of the flood detection system. ATOMIOT was used for this. The program reads events published to the cloud. When water is detected the event Flood_status with event contents of "Hey! Your basement is flooding!" is published and the digital value goes to 1. When no water is detected the digital value is 0.

Water Detection System Circuit

This schematic depicts the circuit and setup required to be able to detect water with the Particle Photon. The circuit involves two wires. The first wire is connected to D0 and the second wire is connected to GND. The opposite end of the two wires are positioned near each other in the area you wish to detect water presence at. When the ends of both wires are simultaneously submerged in water the circuit is completed. The particle is setup to detect and publish when the circuit is completed.

Code

int digitalvalue;

void setup() {
    
    pinMode(D7,OUTPUT);
    pinMode(D1,INPUT);
    
    Particle.variable("digitalvalue", &digitalvalue, INT);
    
    Particle.function("digitalvalue",digitalvalueToggle);

}

void loop() {
    
    digitalvalue = digitalRead(D1);
    
    delay(10000);
    
    if (digitalvalue==1) {
        Particle.publish("Flood_status","Hey! Your basement is flooding!");
        
    }
    else if (digitalvalue==0) {
        Particle.publish("Flood_status","Your basement is not flooded!");
    } 

}

int digitalvalueToggle(String command) {
    if (command=="on") {
        digitalWrite(D7,HIGH);
        return 1;
    }   
    else if (command=="off") {
        digitalWrite(D7,LOW);
        
        return 0;
    }
    else {
        return -1;
    }
}