Simple fluid flow indicator

Use Cases
1

There have been a number of LoRa use cases in this Forum that rely on fairly accurate water/fluid flow meter measurement sensors. In effect, they use LoRa to simply transmit meter readings.

However there are Use Cases which only require data if water/fluid is moving within a pipe (not the fluid flowrate and volume etc).

This very basic data (fluid moving/not moving) may provide useful information:
for example:- unexpected flow of water within a house water pipe may indicate that the pipework has broken elsewhere, or that someone is in a property and using water. There are clear agricultural use cases in irrigation also.

As always, cost and reliability of the sensor itself is key.
So, before I rush out and start buying a bunch of sensors…I thought I should ask the TTN community.

Has anyone had experience of using non-intrusive simple sensors that reliably indicate that fluid is flowing in a pipe?
Also, has anyone attempted acoustic or vibration sensors to achieve this?

2

these types are the cheapest you’ll find

but they are ‘intrusive’, you have to mount them in your system.
non intrusive types don’t work (cheap) for metal pipes

3

thanks @BoRRoZ, but these are intrusive. You need to break the pipe to install them.

I have seen some of the new ultrasonic ‘clamps’ that fit onto the outside of the pipe, but they are very expensive and are designed to monitor flowrates quite accurately.

4

these ‘clamps’ probably only work on non metal pipes

5

Sorry, I forgot to mention the recent thread on level sensors in this forum. That was the discussion that got me thinking about this…!

I am not sure this type of sensor would pick up whether fluid was moving or not. However I will track down the datasheet and check, thanks