The worst home disasters usually happen when nobody’s watching. A supply line under the sink lets go while you’re at work. The water heater starts leaking the first week of a two-week vacation. A fire starts at 3 a.m. in a house with an alarm whose battery was taken out because it went off every time someone made toast.
What turns a small problem into a catastrophe is time, the minutes or hours before anyone notices. A good sensor shrinks that time to seconds, and a smart one tells you even when you’re not home.
Here’s a guide to the sensors that matter most, how they connect to Alexa, Google Home and Apple Home, and how to choose.
Why it’s worth it
- Water damage is one of the most common and costly home insurance claims. The Insurance Information Institute reports that water damage and freezing made up 22.6% of homeowners claims in 2023, with an average claim of about $15,400.
- Working smoke alarms save lives. NFPA found that almost three out of five home fire deaths happened in homes with no smoke alarms (40%) or with alarms that didn’t work (17%). In the failures, missing or disconnected batteries were the most common cause.
Water sensors
Spot leak sensors
These are small, battery-powered pucks that sit on the floor. When water touches the contacts on the bottom, they sound a loud local alarm and send an alert to your phone. Most cost $15 to $40 each, and many also measure temperature, so they can warn you when a room is cold enough to freeze the pipes.
Put one anywhere water can leak:
- Under the kitchen and bathroom sinks
- Next to the water heater
- Behind the washing machine and the dishwasher
- Behind the refrigerator, if it has an ice maker or water line
- Next to the furnace or air handler, where the condensate drains
- In the sump pit or on the basement floor
- Under the water softener or filter system
- Near the main water shutoff and any pipes in a crawl space
Popular brands include Aqara, YoLink, Govee, Eve, Ring, SimpliSafe and Moen, among others. They connect in different ways, and that matters more than the brand:
- Wi-Fi sensors connect directly to your router. They’re easy to set up but use more battery power.
- Zigbee and Z-Wave sensors connect to a hub, such as an Echo with a built-in Zigbee hub, a Ring Alarm base station, or a SmartThings or Aqara hub.
- Thread sensors connect through a Thread border router, like a HomePod mini, an Apple TV, a recent Nest hub or many newer Echo devices.
- Long-range sensors, like YoLink’s, use LoRa radio to reach detached garages, basements and outbuildings that Wi-Fi can’t reach.
Note: Look for a sensor with a built-in siren that sounds even if the internet is down. A phone alert is great, but a loud beep in the basement is what wakes you up at 2 a.m. when the router is off.
Whole-house water monitors and automatic shutoff valves
A leak sensor only knows about the spot it’s sitting on. A whole-house system watches the main water line.
- Smart shutoff valves like Moen’s Flo and Phyn are installed on the main water line, usually by a plumber. They learn your normal water use, look for unusual flow, test for tiny leaks, and can shut off the water to the whole house automatically if they detect a burst pipe.
- Flow monitors like Flume strap onto your water meter without any plumbing work. They can warn you about leaks and unusual use, but can’t shut the water off.
- Valve controllers are motorized clamps that fit over your existing quarter-turn shutoff valve. Pair one with leak sensors, and a sensor that gets wet can turn the water off for the whole house.
Some insurers will give you a discount for an automatic shutoff valve, or help pay for one. In 2026, for example, Stand Insurance and Moen launched a program that gives premium discounts to policyholders who install and keep running a Flo device. Ask your insurer what they offer before you buy.
Smoke, fire and carbon monoxide
Smart smoke and CO alarms
A smart alarm does everything a regular one does, plus it sends an alert to your phone wherever you are, tells you which room the problem is in, and reminds you when the battery is low.
The market changed in 2025. Google stopped making the Nest Protect and teamed up with First Alert, whose new Smart Smoke & CO Alarm works with the Google Home app. Nest Protects already installed keep working until they expire. Kidde’s HomeSafe smart alarms work with Alexa and Google Home, while the Kidde alarms made with Ring work through the Ring app.
Whatever you choose, NFPA’s basic rules still apply:
- Put a smoke alarm in every bedroom, outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home.
- Interconnect them, so when one goes off they all do. Many smart alarms do this wirelessly.
- Test them every month.
- Replace smoke alarms when they’re 10 years old, even the ones with 10-year batteries and even hardwired ones. The date is on the back.
- Put CO alarms on every level and outside sleeping areas, and replace them when the manufacturer says to.
Listeners: make the alarms you have smart
You don’t have to replace working alarms to get alerts on your phone. A “listener” hears the sound pattern of a smoke or CO alarm and sends you an alert.
- Apple HomePod and HomePod mini can recognize the sound of smoke and CO alarms and send a notification to your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. It’s free, and the listening is done on the HomePod itself. Turn it on in the Home app under Home Settings, then Safety & Security, then Sound Recognition.
- Amazon Echo devices can listen for smoke and CO alarms and send you an alert through Alexa Emergency Assist, Amazon’s subscription safety service.
- Ring and other alarm systems sell small listener devices that sit near an existing alarm and report to the alarm system.
Apple warns that its sound recognition shouldn’t be relied on in emergencies, and the same goes for any listener. They’re a backup to your alarms, not a replacement.
Electrical fire sensors
Some fires start inside the walls long before there’s smoke. Ting, from Whisker Labs, is a sensor that plugs into an outlet and watches your home’s wiring for the tiny electrical arcs that come before many electrical fires. State Farm gives Ting sensors and three years of service to eligible homeowners in most states, at no cost.
Connecting it all to Alexa, Google Home and Apple Home
Most sensors work with at least one of the big three platforms, but not all of them work with all three. Check the box or product page for “Works with Alexa,” “Works with Google Home” or “Works with Apple Home,” and look for the Matter logo.
Matter is a shared standard, backed by Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung and hundreds of device makers, that lets one device work with all of the major platforms. Matter added smoke and CO alarms in 2023 and water leak sensors and valves in 2024, and Apple added support for them to the Home app in iOS 18.4. Matter leak sensors are now easy to find. Matter smoke alarms are still rare, so for those, expect to use the maker’s app alongside your platform.
Once your sensors are connected, use automations to make them do more than notify you:
- Turn on the lights when a smoke alarm goes off at night.
- Close the water valve when any leak sensor gets wet.
- Turn off the furnace fan if smoke is detected, to slow how fast smoke spreads (if your thermostat supports it).
- Announce the problem on every speaker in the house.
Before you buy
- Choose one platform for the whole house if you can. It’s much easier to manage one app than five.
- Make sure alerts go to more than one person. A leak alert doesn’t help if it goes only to the phone of the person who’s on a plane.
- Count the batteries. Every sensor needs new batteries eventually, usually every one to five years.
- Check for subscription costs. Many sensors work for free, but some features, like professional monitoring, cost extra.
- Follow your local code. Smart alarms don’t replace the hardwired, interconnected alarms that building codes require in many homes. Add to them; don’t swap them out unless the replacement is approved for that use.
How Dwell Secure fits in
Sensors tell you something is wrong. Dwell Secure tells you, and everyone else in your household, what to do about it.
- When the leak alert comes in, open the Flooding / Leak emergency in Dwell Secure. It shows you where your main water shutoff is, with a photo and step-by-step guide to turning it off, plus the number for your plumber. If you’re away, a family member or neighbor you’ve shared the property with can find the same information.
- Record every sensor. Add each sensor, smart alarm and shutoff valve as a service item with its location, model, serial number and install date. Then mark them on your floor plan, so you know where every sensor is, and so does whoever is house-sitting.
Smart devices are only as good as their batteries, so put their upkeep on a schedule too. Add recurring schedules like these, and each one shows up on your dashboard as it comes due:
- Test the smoke and CO alarms: monthly
- Test each leak sensor with a damp paper towel: every six months
- Replace sensor batteries: annually
- Exercise the main water shutoff valve: annually
- Replace smoke alarms: a one-time task, 10 years from the date on the back
Every new property in Dwell Secure starts with a yearly schedule to check your smoke and CO alarm batteries. Add the rest in a few minutes, and the technology that’s watching your home will keep watching it.
Sources
- Insurance Information Institute, Facts + Statistics: Homeowners and renters insurance
- NFPA, Smoke alarms in U.S. home fires and smoke alarm safety tips
- 9to5Google, Google ends production of Nest Protect (March 2025)
- Kidde, Smart smoke alarm
- Apple, Get alerts for smoke and carbon monoxide detectors on HomePod
- State Farm, Ting fire safety program
- Coverager, Stand and Moen launch smart water leak program with insurance discounts (2026)
- Connectivity Standards Alliance, Matter
- Matter Alpha, iOS 18.4 expands Matter support with smoke, CO and water leak sensors
