Complete gateway product design for leak detection solution

Client Overview

US-based leading manufacturer of plumbing products and accessories, including leak detector that helps analyze water flow, its usage and provides 24/7 protection with alerts on the mobile application.

Business Challenge

The existing gateway of leak detection sensor was not performing well thus need to re-design water mitigation solution with better aesthetic design:

Complete home water monitoring
- Monitor the home 24/7 for water leaks and temperature changes
Leak detection
- Detect both leaking water and dropping temperatures from sensors
Water damage protection
- Avoid water damage
- Alert the system to automatically shut off the water supply if a leak is detected
- Remotely control main water valve

VOLANSYS Contribution

VOLANSYS helped the client in designing their existing gateway of home water leak detection system and provided support in the overall solution:

Customized HomeBridge Gateway with a new Mechanical Enclosure
- IP40 enclosure design and conceptual sketches
- 3D CAD design and 2D detailed drawing
- 3D prototyping in DFM and SLA for form-factor validation and field testing
- Designed complex mold with multiple sliders
- Mold tooling ready with T-final samples within the 8-week time
- Vibration and drop testing on the enclosure as per shipment standard
- Silk screen printing process for logo and FCC ID text printing
- Translucent light pipe for logo illume with different colors
- White color enclosure
- No shrink or gate mark visible at single places
- Defined cosmetic inspection criteria to get 0% rejection on product final assembly line
- Provided mold maintenance
- Worked with client on new ID design for a tabletop
- Battery operated
- Low power Zigbee to Wi-Fi gateway
- Communicates with multiple sensors, valves and users
Production and mass manufacturing support > 10K units

Technologies | Engineering Expertise

Mechanical Design Engineering | Manufacturing | Product Engineering | Embedded Engineering

Application Diagram

Smart Leak Detection

Benefits Delivered

Improved aesthetic design with logo illuminations and reduced form-factor by 25%
Handled mold complexity with multiple sliders for the bottom part to make ease of overall product assembly
Efficient Ayla enabled Gateway solution delivered – target price in $higher 20s
Rapid roll-out of first production with support for volume up to ~10K
Improved product performance by reducing time to detect and stop water leaks to less than 5 seconds

Designing the Gateway of the Leak Detection Sensor and Mass Manufacturing Support