Smart Water Tech

I bought a tank-level monitor and pump controller from SmartWater New Zealand [SM] via a local reseller in VIC, Australia. The initial purchase was the first step in a broader plan to buy more of these units to manage better and automate water and water transfers across our rural property. Unfortunately, we only have the basic manual pump controller functions working after many months of emails and phone calls with the NZ head office and the local reseller. According to the SM website, the pump controller has various automated features, such as Start When, Stop When, and Run for x hrs operations … none of which work. Activating ‘Automatic pump operation’ is problematic as it doesn’t do what is requested, but this setting seems to initialise unwanted information in the user interface and a number of unintended features. All these experiences [which could be described as bugs or significant pieces of logic that don’t work] were shared in writing with the reseller and SmartWater’s head office. It is disheartening to learn that SmartWater does not even maintain a bug registry; it lacks an in-house team to address software issues and has no formal support or ticket management processes. In my case the SW leadership couldn’t even be bothered to run an internal test to verify my concerns which further highlights their poor attitude and limited internal skills. The only advice I received was to uninstall and re-pair the hardware elements in the app, which proved ineffective. SW was not able to share any planned release program or updates that might address these bugs. I have no idea if or when a software release is pending. What is more disappointing is how poorly the SM leadership seems comfortable leaving these issues hanging with their reseller and the customer. They are not proactive in any way. Pathetic is the best descriptor that jumps to my mind.

Wish there was more detail available. Have found the avg daily use is misleading and also can give you an alarming amount of days remaining that is way out. I would like the ability to see the actual usage for a day and see individual measurements. Also an option to convert to view litres instead of percentage. Ability to export data for further analysis would also help.

Works well for triggering the pump remotely! Good communication with tech support. Some errors still persist unfortunately within App: • Paywall error randomly - notification saying out of subscription although your not, then tries to remove your timers and extra pumps / tanks. • Timezone for timers was from phone not local to pump - not great if your phone moves Timezone and your pump doesn’t. Causes pump to overflow for hours basically. • Unfortunately you can’t have the pump fill the tank automatically AND turn on at a set time. - We use a NC solenoid to divert water from tank to retic at set times from Rainbird and use the timer function in Smart Water to set the pump off at certain times. “Turn on IF tank is less than 70% OR time = 8am - run for 90 minutes” “Turn off IF tank is more than 90% AND schedule run timer is inactive.” This is the holy grail of all I’d like this system to do personally.

I’ve been using this for 2 years with four sets of tanks and while it is good for general information, it gives endless false alerts telling me the tanks are empty or using abnormal amounts of water. Very frustrating.

Would be awesome for developer to allow you to define tank diameter etc so usage can be measured as either % or litres..

Get a lot of unnecessary alerts of tank levels dropping but once the app is opened there is no reason for these alerts, sometimes 20 to 30 a day for 13 tanks in total, alerts are now turned off and have to check manually, everything else works well.

The app is useful for remote monitoring and was easy to set up. A couple of areas for improvement/thought: the Tank Level chart needs greater fidelity - it shows only one daily level and hence makes monitoring (especially during filling and looking at fill rate) trickier (as we use a non- Smart water pump controller and hence cannot yet automate). The upper level/limit also has not ‘auto adjusted’ after two fills and hence the first days use shows no fall (as water is above the set tank level).

The app has some serious bugs. The LCD loses connectivity to wifi and upon reconnecting, it loses all stored site info. After which all devices have to be brought back within bluetooth range to reconnect. The app needs to be updated so that wifi configuration is easy and straightforward. The range of tank monitor and pump controller is good. This unit is not at a professional level for pump control. There is no way to know if the pump is running. If the wifi issue is fixed and made easy to configure, it may be worth investing in. I have already purchased the hardware so I will continue testing.