norcoscia wrote:If I had it all to do over again I would just have avoided indigo and home automation…
I don't understand how that would help you with your water leak notification scenario.
I have found that the
Inovelli switches, some of which
have a notification feature where you can flash/change colors/etc the LED strip on them to be a HUGE win for visual notifications. I have all of them in my house set to flash/chase green when the washer or dryer is finished, and flash/chase red when one of my water sensors goes off (which also sends a message to a Slack channel, which sounds notifications on my iPhones, iPads, and my computer). The HomeSeer and Zooz switches also have LED color adjustment as well, but they don't remember what they used to be before they are switched to a different color. Now, there's an idea for a plugin!
For super important stuff, you could get one of the siren devices and set it off when there's an emergency situation.
There is no 100% sure solution for notifications: internet-based services can be down, cell service can be be spotty, devices can be turned off, etc. The best way to handle notifications is with a range of notification methods that are appropriate given the relative importance of the event. For water leaks, along with the above I also send an email to the sms bridge for my phone and send a prowl notification. So with 3 different things that will try notifying my phone and the visual notification from the switches, and the audio beep from the water sensor devices that I use, I figure it's pretty likely I'll hear about it somehow.