--- title: "UniFi Sensors: Water, Freeze and Smoke Alerts" description: "Ubiquiti's SuperLink sensors add leak, freeze, glass break and smoke alerts to a UniFi Protect system. What they catch, and what to watch out for." date: 2026-10-22 updated: 2026-10-25 category: security tags: [UniFi, UniFi Protect, Sensors, Security] url: "https://relaypoint.ca/blog/unifi-protect-superlink-sensors-ontario" author: RelayPoint Technologies --- Cameras are good at telling you what happened. They are not much use for the things that go wrong quietly: a supply line weeping behind a vanity, a furnace that quits in February, a chest freezer that drifts above zero over a long weekend. Ubiquiti has been filling that gap with a line of battery sensors that report into UniFi Protect. The Smoke and CO Alarm got its first firmware release on October 15, alongside updates to the Environmental and Glass Break sensors. Enough of the line is shipping now that it is worth explaining what the sensors are for, and where we would and would not lean on them. ## SuperLink is a long-range radio, not Wi-Fi The sensors do not join your Wi-Fi. They talk to a small SuperLink Gateway over Ubiquiti's own radio protocol, and the gateway is the part that plugs into your network. Ubiquiti rates the link at up to 2 km in open conditions and says one gateway handles up to 96 devices. That matters more than it sounds. Battery sensors on Wi-Fi have a long history of dropping off when an access point reboots, and they burn through cells staying associated. SuperLink devices are rated in years instead: up to six on the Environmental Sensor's CR123A battery, up to ten on the smoke alarm. For a property with a detached shop or a pumphouse, the range means you can cover outbuildings without putting network gear in each one. The gateway takes PoE from a UniFi switch or USB-C power, so it uses a port on your existing switch. It is not weather-rated and is only rated for 0 to 40 degrees, which means it lives inside with the rest of the gear and not in an unheated garage. If your switch is already close to its power ceiling, our guide to [PoE budgets](/blog/poe-budgets-explained) covers how to work that out. ## The ones people actually ask us about Water and freeze detection is the big one. The Environmental Sensor reads temperature, humidity and ambient light, and finds water either through contacts on its base when it sits flat on the floor or through a probe on a 3.5 mm jack. You set a safe range for each reading in Protect and get an alert when something falls outside it. Under a laundry tub, beside a hot water tank, on the floor of a mechanical room. The temperature side is the one that saves real money, because a furnace failure caught at 8 degrees is an inconvenience and the same failure caught at minus 5 is a plumbing bill. The sensor works down to minus 20 and is rated IPX5. Entry, motion and glass break sensors are the old alarm-panel basics in battery form. What makes them worth having here is that they sit in the same app as the cameras, so a door opening can bring up the clip from the camera watching that door. There is also a wired Alarm Hub with 32 zones if an older panel's loops are still in your walls and in decent shape. ## Read the fine print on the smoke alarm Ubiquiti's store page marks the Smoke and CO Alarm residential use only, and lists no UL, ULC or CSA certification. Stock has also been thin since it launched. We treat it as a notification device rather than life safety equipment. Keep the code-required alarms you already have, and add the UniFi unit on top if what you want is a phone alert when nobody is home. For a cottage or a rental that is a genuine gain, since the trouble with a conventional alarm is that it sounds in an empty building. Worth knowing while you are up a ladder anyway: Ontario's carbon monoxide rules changed on January 1 of this year. A home with a fuel-burning appliance now needs an alarm on every storey, not only near the sleeping areas, and the requirement was extended to homes heated by air from an appliance outside the building. If your alarms predate that, they are likely due for replacement regardless. ## What it takes to add them If you already run a UniFi Protect console, adding sensors comes down to a gateway, a free switch port and some thought about placement. If you do not run Protect, sensors alone are not a reason to build a system. They are a very good reason to put them on the list while you are already doing [cameras](/services/protect/security-camera-installation), and they pair naturally with the kind of [self-hosted monitoring we set up for cottages](/blog/cottage-monitoring-no-fees). Placement is where the value is won or lost. A leak sensor six inches from where water actually pools reports nothing at all, and a temperature sensor in a heated hallway will happily tell you the hallway is fine while the pipes in the crawlspace freeze. We walk the mechanical areas and put sensors where the water goes and where the cold gets in first, which is rarely the convenient flat surface at eye level. Our labour is $150 an hour everywhere we work, and every job is quoted in writing before anyone picks up a drill. Sensors almost always ride along with other work rather than justifying a trip of their own. If you prefer to handle the configuration yourself, Josh covers the Protect side in more depth on [his own site](https://joshdargie.com). ## What we recommend In a house you live in, start with an Environmental Sensor at the water heater and a second one in the lowest part of the basement. Add entry sensors on whichever doors your cameras cannot see. For a cottage or a seasonal place, temperature comes first and water second. The harder question is how the alert reaches you when the internet at the property drops, which it does. Ubiquiti lists a gateway version with LTE and a built-in battery, and for a building you cannot easily check on, that is the one to ask about. Plenty of the properties we look after around Long Point and across the [areas we serve](/areas) sit empty from October to May. In a small business, cover the freezer, the network closet and the utility room. Those account for most of the Monday morning phone calls we get. If you have us on a [UniFi managed services](/services/support/unifi-managed-services) plan, we see the alerts too, which is usually the difference between finding out on Monday and finding out on Saturday night. If you are planning cameras this winter and want the sensors priced in the same quote, [get in touch](/contact) and we will walk the building with you. ## Sources - [UniFi Protect SuperLink](https://ui.com/physical-security/special-devices/super-link) (Ubiquiti) - [Ubiquiti release notes, October 2026](https://releasebot.io/updates/ubiquiti) - [Smoke and CO Alarm product page](https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/usl-smoke) (Ubiquiti Store) - [UniFi Protect SuperLink Environmental Sensor review](https://www.storagereview.com/review/unifi-protect-superlink-environmental-sensor-review-reliable-leak-and-climate-alerts-anywhere) (StorageReview) - [Carbon monoxide safety](https://www.ontario.ca/cosafety) (Government of Ontario)