Product Library / Water Protection & Plumbing

Research profile · last verified 2026-08-12

Eve Water Guard (2nd generation, Thread)

Compiled by SmartHomeWorkflow Research · Eve Systems · Water Protection & Plumbing · ~$100 ($99.95 at the February 2022 Thread-model launch — the last price Eve itself published for this model. Neither Eve's current product page nor Amazon exposed a live price to research tooling on 2026-07-19, so this is a launch MSRP, not a current price.)

Exactly which product this is[3][10]

Model number
51EBG8702
Generation
2nd generation (Thread)
Region this page covers
US
Also sold or listed as
Eve Water Guard 2nd gen · 51EBG8702 · 51EBZ8702

“Not established” means we have not sourced that detail yet — not that the product has no model number, generation or regional variant. We publish the gap rather than filling it.

Compatibility

EcosystemSupportThe catch
Amazon AlexaInconclusiveWe researched this and the evidence doesn't settle it — the catch explains why[5][18]Downgraded from a published 'none' on 2026-08-20 (16 #368, owner-ratified): the entry that carried the negative cited a TechHive review that now returns HTTP 410 Gone, and the archive rung was unreachable — so the settled verdict rested on evidence that no longer exists. What remains is architectural reasoning, not a source: the device's application layer is Apple HomeKit over Thread, Alexa does not speak HomeKit, and Eve's Matter-upgrade page does not list Water Guard among the products given a Matter path. That reasoning makes 'none' LIKELY, and likely is what 'unknown' is for — an integration verdict needs a source that states it.
Google HomeInconclusiveWe researched this and the evidence doesn't settle it — the catch explains why[5][18]Downgraded from a published 'none' on 2026-08-20 (16 #368, owner-ratified) for the same reason as the Alexa cell: the citing review returns 410 Gone and the archive was unreachable. The architectural picture — HomeKit over Thread, no Matter path on Eve's own upgrade list, no Google Home route to HomeKit devices — makes 'none' likely, but a published negative needs a live source, and this one's is deleted.
SmartThingsDoesn't workVerified: does not work with this ecosystem[6]No SmartThings path exists. Recorded as none on the protocol architecture rather than a vendor statement: SmartThings does not implement HomeKit, and Water Guard has no Matter certification that would give SmartThings a route to it. We found no explicit statement from either Eve or SmartThings addressing this product, so the basis here is structural — weaker evidence than the Alexa and Google entries, which also carry a published compatibility statement.
Home AssistantInconclusiveWe researched this and the evidence doesn't settle it — the catch explains why[7]Genuinely unresolved. Home Assistant's Eve integration is Matter-only and does not list Water Guard. HA does document a HomeKit Device integration that can adopt HomeKit-over-Thread accessories, which is the plausible route, but community reports and an open HA core issue describe real pairing failures with that class of device, and no source confirms a working Water Guard pairing. Note also that adopting a HomeKit accessory into HA generally means unpairing it from Apple Home.
Apple HomeWorksWorks with this ecosystem[1][14]The one ecosystem this device serves, and it serves it fully — but the useful half needs hardware beyond the box. Remote notifications, away-from-home alerts and automations all require a HomePod or Apple TV, so the real entry cost is above the sticker for anyone who does not already own one. It is a Full Thread Device and, being mains-powered, acts as a router that extends the Thread mesh rather than leaning on it. Siren muting is missing from the Apple Home app and lives only in the Eve app.In Apple Home you also need: a Thread border router

? Inconclusive means we researched that ecosystem and the evidence doesn’t settle it — the catch says why, and the sources are listed below. It is a statement about the available evidence, never a verdict on the product. A Setup Check researches your exact setup where the official sources don’t answer.

Protocols: THREAD · BLUETOOTH[2][3][4][14]

Needs before it works: An Apple Thread border router — HomePod mini, HomePod (2nd gen), or Apple TV 4K (2nd gen, or the 3rd gen Wi-Fi + Ethernet model) — which doubles as the Apple home hub needed for remote alerts and automations. A non-Apple border router does not substitute: this device speaks HomeKit over Thread, not Matter, so a Google, SmartThings or eero border router cannot carry it. Setup requires an iPhone or iPad; there is no Android path.[3]

What it can do[17]

You can tell it to

Not established — we could not confirm this from vendor documentation

It reports

  • Leak detected

Listed capabilities are what we could establish from vendor documentation. An ability missing here is unestablished — not necessarily absent.

Subscription reality[8]

✓ Works without a subscription: Yes.

Vendor account required: No — no vendor account is involved.[8]

No subscription and no vendor account at all — Eve states there is no Eve cloud or bridge, and settings sync through the buyer's own iCloud rather than an Eve server. This is verified from Eve's privacy and product pages, not assumed from silence.

Maintenance reality[3]

The catch

It is a wired, Apple-only leak detector, and three constraints compound. It needs mains power, so the unit sits at an outlet and only the cable reaches the floor where water collects. It speaks HomeKit over Thread with no Matter certification, so Alexa, Google Home and Android are excluded outright — and Eve has passed it over through three and a half years of Matter upgrades covering eight other products. And meaningful function, meaning remote alerts and automations, requires an Apple TV or HomePod on top of the purchase. Against that: no account, no cloud, no subscription, and a sensing cable that runs to roughly 150 metres.

Who it's for

Apple Home households that already own a HomePod or Apple TV and need to watch a long linear run — behind a washer, along a water heater drip pan, down a length of exposed pipe — rather than one point on a floor, and that specifically want a device with no vendor account or cloud behind it. It is the wrong product for Android households, for anyone mixing ecosystems, and for anyone who needs the sensor somewhere far from an outlet.

Sources & method

Numbered sources below back the facts marked with the matching number above. This is a research profile: compiled from manufacturer documentation, certification registries, and published testing — we state facts, not verdicts, and we have not physically tested this unit. How we work →

  1. [1] Existing record evidence re-read 2026-08-09 against the owner's companion-app ruling of the same date (encoded in docs/09-DATA-LAYER.md): this record's Apple catch already states 'Siren muting is missing from the Apple Home app and lives only in the Eve app', while remote notifications and automations require a HomePod or Apple TV. No new vendor source was consulted and no level was changed; the entry records that the ruling's materiality edge is unset. — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-09
    Backs: Apple Home compatibility
  2. [2] evehome.com/en-us/eve-water-guard (read 2026-08-09): 'This device does not require a hub for control right from your iPhone or iPad.' · Bluetooth supported alongside Thread (Full Thread Device). — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-09
    Backs: Protocols
  3. [3] evehome.com/en-us/eve-water-guard — lists Bluetooth and Thread, 'Full Thread Device (FTD)', model 51EBG8702, 100–240V 50 mA supply, 6.5 ft cable extendable to 490 ft, and states it 'requires a HomePod or an Apple TV (4th generation or later) as a home hub'. The page makes no Matter claim. Corroborated by evehome.com/en-us/support/eve-water-guard, which gives the cable maximum as 150 m / 500 ft — the discrepancy is recorded rather than resolved. — vendor-page research, verified 2026-07-19
    Backs: Protocols, Product identity, Maintenance, Required hub or bridge, Works without the internet
  4. [4] evehome.com/en-us/upgrade-to-matter lists the eight Eve products with a Matter upgrade path (Energy, Door & Window, Light Switch, Motion, MotionBlinds, Shutter Switch, Thermo, Weather); Water Guard is absent, and Eve states it has no timeline or ordering to share. Supported by a csa-iot.org certified-products search that returned six other Eve devices and no Water Guard entry, and by Home Assistant's Eve integration page, which is Matter-only and does not list it. VERIFICATION NOTE: a search snippet asserting 'Eve Water Guard is Matter-enabled' was traced to generic Eve marketing boilerplate conflated with Water Guard content by the search engine, and is contradicted by four Eve-owned pages — treat that claim as a known false positive if it resurfaces. — vendor-page and registry research, verified 2026-07-19
    Backs: Protocols
  5. [5] Published third-party testing (TechHive review of the 2nd-gen Water Guard) states it is 'not compatible with Alexa or Google Assistant, nor will it work with Android' — an affirmative compatibility statement rather than vendor silence. The architectural basis is Eve's own upgrade page above: HomeKit over Thread with no Matter path, and neither Alexa nor Google Home implements HomeKit. — third-party-testing plus vendor-page inference on protocol architecture, verified 2026-07-19
    Backs: Google Home compatibility, Amazon Alexa compatibility
  6. [6] No statement from Eve or SmartThings addressing this product was found. Recorded as none on protocol architecture only: SmartThings does not implement HomeKit, and the CSA registry shows no Matter certification that would give it a route. This entry rests on structural reasoning rather than a published statement, which is a lower evidence bar than the Alexa and Google entries carry. — structural inference — no counterparty statement located, verified 2026-07-19
    Backs: SmartThings compatibility
  7. [7] home-assistant.io/integrations/eve/ covers Eve Matter devices only and does not list Water Guard. home-assistant.io/integrations/homekit_controller/ and /integrations/thread/ document that Thread alone carries no control layer and that HomeKit accessories are adopted via the HomeKit Device integration, but home-assistant/core issue 131229 and community reports describe pairing failures for HomeKit-over-Thread accessories. No source confirms a working Water Guard pairing in either direction. — counterparty-source research, verified 2026-07-19
    Backs: Home Assistant compatibility
  8. [8] evehome.com/en-us/privacy states there is no Eve cloud or bridge and that no account is required; Eve's feature pages state 'no registration, no subscription, no cloud'; settings sync via the buyer's iCloud rather than an Eve server — vendor-page research, verified 2026-07-19
    Backs: Subscription, Vendor account required
  9. [9] evehome.com/en/news/eve-water-guard-thread-support (2022-02-22) gives USD $99.95 at launch, $189.90 for a two-pack and $19.95 for the sensing-cable extension. No current price was obtainable on 2026-07-19 — neither Eve's product page nor Amazon rendered one to research tooling — so this is recorded as a launch MSRP. — vendor-page research, verified 2026-07-19
    Backs: Price
  10. [10] ABB newsroom (new.abb.com) and evehome.com/en/eve-becomes-part-of-abb both record ABB Ltd's acquisition of Eve Systems GmbH effective 2023-06-01, with Eve continuing as an independent brand inside ABB Electrification's Smart Buildings division — counterparty-source research, verified 2026-07-19
    Backs: Product identity
  11. [11] Eve's product and FAQ pages describe detection plus a 100 dB siren and no valve. Published third-party testing notes the siren cannot be disabled or volume-adjusted, and that cutting an appliance's power via a smart plug is the usual automation pattern. No source confirms a verified pairing with any specific shutoff valve. — vendor-page and third-party-testing research, verified 2026-07-19
  12. [12] evehome.com/en-us/eve-water-guard active product page with a working cart, plus current support/FAQ pages, checked 2026-07-19. The Thread model was announced 2022-02-22 (evehome.com/en/news/eve-water-guard-thread-support). A Bluetooth-only 1st generation preceded it; its first-sa — migrated hand stamp, verified 2026-08-20
    Backs: Market availability
  13. [13] Eve app actively maintained and shipping ('Eve for Matter & HomeKit', App Store); Water Guard support and FAQ pages current — migrated hand stamp, verified 2026-07-19
    Backs: Service status
  14. [14] evehome.com/en-us/eve-water-guard, read 2026-08-12. THE PRICE IS STILL NOT PUBLISHED, and that is the finding rather than a gap in the research: the page carries an add-to-cart flow and the line 'Only available at the Eve Store', with no figure anywhere on it. So the recorded $99.95 remains what it has always been — the February 2022 launch figure, the last price Eve itself published for this model — and it is NOT re-stamped as a current price, because nothing current was observed. A confirmed absence is a real re-verification outcome (note 72: record WHY a value is what it is), and this one has now held across two consecutive checks a month apart. Compatibility re-read on the same page: the 'Works with Apple Home' badge is present and no other ecosystem appears, which is why Alexa, Google and SmartThings stay `none` rather than unknown — Eve names one platform and only one. Thread is stated ('Alongside Bluetooth, Eve Water Guard supports Thread') and Matter readiness is described, both matching the recorded protocols. The live, maintained product page is also the service-axis evidence: the product is still offered and still documented by its maker. — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-12
    Backs: Price, Market availability, Service status, Apple Home compatibility, Protocols
  15. [15] BQ-107 re-verification batch 30, 2026-08-12. Price, availability, protocols and every integration cell re-read against Eve's own current product page. Outcome: NOTHING MOVED — same single-platform compatibility story, same Thread/Bluetooth protocols, same absent price. Recorded as a re-verified no-change rather than left implicit, because 'we looked and it is unchanged' is the outcome the docket exists to produce and is indistinguishable from 'nobody looked' unless it is written down. — re-verification batch, verified 2026-08-20
    Backs: Research status
  16. [16] evehome.com, Eve Water Guard product page — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-17
    Backs: Power source, Role in a Thread network
  17. [17] evehome.com/en-us/eve-water-guard, read 2026-08-20: "Eve Water Guard alerts as soon as water comes into contact with even just a small section of the sensing cable"; the device carries a "100 dB siren & visual alert"; the Eve app permits view status, review previous events, alarm test, mute alarm, firmware updates, notification and guest-access configuration, while "The Home app and Siri permit only status viewing." Apple scope on the same page: a "HomeKit-enabled accessory" whose automations and remote access require "a HomePod or an Apple TV (4th generation or later) as a home hub". Thread: "Eve Water Guard supports Thread" as "a Full Thread Device (FTD)". Matter: "Ready for Matter: With a future software update". — vendor-page research (BQ-187 capabilities population, batch 7 — water-protection), verified 2026-08-20
    Backs: Capabilities
  18. [18] The TechHive review of the 2nd-gen Water Guard, which carried the affirmative negative ('not compatible with Alexa or Google Assistant, nor will it work with Android'), returns HTTP 410 Gone (found 2026-08-19, BQ-212 tranche 4); web.archive.org was unreachable from our tooling on the same pass. Eve's Matter-upgrade page (still live) lists the products given a Matter path and Water Guard is not among them — architectural context, not a platform-support statement. — owner-ratified ruling (16 #368, 2026-08-20 rulings sitting): a published integration negative whose only source is deleted downgrades to `unknown` unless a live or archived source is found, verified 2026-08-20
    Backs: Amazon Alexa compatibility, Google Home compatibility
  19. [19] No source was read for this entry. It records an edit so the edit is not silent, per the freshness guard's own instruction. — provenance URL backfill (BQ-212 tranche 8) — labelling pass, no re-verification, verified 2026-08-20
  20. [20] No source was read for this entry. It classifies evidence this record already carries, and records a hard stop so it is not re-derived or guessed at. — classification pass over `none` integration cells (doc-16 #453) — reading only, no source fetched, verified 2026-08-22
  21. [21] Record-keeping entry: the migrated research stamp was retired from this record on 2026-08-30 — internal, verified 2026-08-30
  22. [22] Apple Support, ‘Set up your HomePod, HomePod mini, or Apple TV as a home hub’, read together with ‘Identify your Apple TV model’ at support.apple.com/en-us/101605. — first-party browser-rendered read (interactive session), verified 2026-09-06

Compatibility and lifecycle information reflects the last-verified date above and can change without notice (firmware updates, cloud-service changes, discontinuations). It is provided as-is, for information — verify with the manufacturer before purchasing. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it. Full terms: Terms of Service.

Check it against YOUR setup →