How to smartly monitor your pool water with a phone or voice assistant

On our most recent IoT Podcast, Steven called into the podcast hotline with a question about his pool. He’d like a device to monitor his pool’s temperature and then be able to ask a digital assistant what that temperature is. There is a range of options although some are expensive and only a few work with either Alexa or Google Assistant.

Phin, not the company that makes a water leak detection system, offers a $350 smart product that is mainly focused on monitoring the water quality in a pool or spa. When your pool water’s pH balance is low, for example, Phin will notify you that it’s time to put in the appropriate chemicals and, based on the water capacity of your pool, how much of those chemicals to disburse. It does also offer real-time water temperature data. The downside is that all of the notifications and data are limited to the Phin mobile app. There are no smart assistant integrations available, even at this price.

If you want smart assistant integration on the cheap, Qubino has a product line of pool modules that use Z-Wave. Many of the modules are used to automate or control your pool lights or pumps but only one $45 to $50 module is needed for this specific project. You’d just need to add the available $15 external temperature probe from Qubino.

Since this is a Z-Wave product, it can be used with Samsung SmartThings. Just not natively. There is a custom device handler that reportedly shows the water temperature, however, so with a little effort, this could be a viable option. Once the device handler is working, you can then access the temperature with a voice assistant. 

We did find many other temperature monitor options while researching Steven’s question, but none of them were what we consider “connected” or smart. So these are the best recommendations we could find. Chime in if you know of another product that would work!

To hear Steven’s question in full, as well as our full discussion, tune in to the IoT Podcast below.