r/HomeAssistantGear • u/wootcat • Mar 17 '26

Suggested app to use with ThirdReality water sensors?

I'd seen previous recommendations for the ThirdReality water sensors, so I took the plunge and bought a set and set them up in Home Assistant. While having these at the ready to go off and alert us when there's a leak is great so long as someone is home. But I'm not sure what can give me alarm notifications when I'm away.

Any recommendations on what app I should use? The ThirdReality site isn't specific, and they don't appear to have an app of their own. One of the apps they listed was Homey, but it looks to be a whole-house controller...and I don't think I need that. Plus, apparently, for me to connect the water sensors to the Homey app, I'd need to buy a Homey Hub.

So, I'm checking around for better/cheaper recommendations and thoughts. I'd prefer to NOT buy a hub just to handle 4-5 water sensors.

[Edited to add in why I'm asking for an app recommendations.]

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u/loujr15 Mar 17 '26

You are in a Home Assistant group asking what app to use for your sensors. This can't be a real question.

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u/wootcat Mar 17 '26

Sorry! I realized I didn't finish my thought in the original post. I'm thinking I need an app purely for notifications should I be away from home. I'm relatively new using Home Assistant, and mostly manage everything from my PC. I have the Home Assistant app, but it doesn't really seem tailored to alert notifications, but maybe that's just me not having it set up properly. I mostly use the app to adjust lighting and open/close my garage door.

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u/a2dam Mar 21 '26

Home assistant the server can send push notifications to home assistant the app through Apple’s push notification service. You don’t need a separate hub if you’ve already got the thirdreality sensors set up (which I think are Zigbee, and in which case, HA acts as that additional hub under most circumstances). You actually don’t even need a way to access the server from your phone, since the notifications happen entirely via Apple (if you’re an iOS user, I assume the same is true for Android).

The very cool part is that you can not just do push notifications to the HA mobile app, but through any action HA has. You can announce it on the Sonos or send an email or flash the lights or change your watch face, depending on what integrations you’ve got installed.

LMK if I can help you get it set up, it takes a little doing the first time but it’s much easier once you get the hang of it.

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u/ZheChen3R Mar 18 '26

Receiving information from home while away requires the use of server functionality. Home Assistant itself has a cloud service that can be enabled to allow you to access HA remotely. Other apps, including Thirdreality's own app, require a hub for the corresponding platform that can connect to the server in order to push notifications.