Global engineering challenge to tackle £900m water leakage problem

RS Components and Legal & General have issued an open call to the world’s engineering and maker community with a new IoT design competition — the ‘LeakKiller Challenge’. The companies are offering a £15,000 prize for the best design prototype of a low-cost, open source IoT leakage detection and warning system. Ultimately, the goal is to turn the winning design(s) into an end-product that can be installed by customers to protect their homes and belongings from leaks and reduce their insurance premiums / excess. The insurance industry has seen an 4% rise in the average cost of water leakage claims over the last 3 years. According to Association of British Insurers (ABI) nearly one in five claims made on buildings and contents insurance were for damage caused by leaks; with insurers paying out around £2.5m every day in claims. These figures apply to the UK alone, so the cost calculated on a global level would be stratospheric. As well as the huge financial costs and serious damage water leakage incidents cause, there is also the human factor — the stress of sourcing an emergency plumber and the serious disruption caused when families must vacate their homes for months while repairs take place. Maarten Ectors, chief digital officer – GI, Legal & General commented: “Many water leakage claims happen when frozen pipes burst in the winter, but there are plenty of other reasons why leaks occur — poorly-installed washing machines or dishwashers, water seeping out from under the bath or shower, or leaky storage tanks in the loft. By initiating the LeakKiller Challenge it’s our goal to harness the power of open source engineering and productise an IoT solution that will, in time, actively prevent leakage incidents from happening and bring down the cost of home insurance for our customers.” Mike Bray, vice president of DesignSpark at RS added: “There are already certain leak detection solutions in the market, but these can be very expensive, both to buy and have professionally fitted, and they’re just warning systems that don’t prevent any damage being done. Through the LeakKiller Challenge we want engineers, makers, students, etc. to embrace the open source hardware and software philosophy and be inspired to create something truly low-cost and simple to install. With a community of more than 570,000 registered members, and rising, DesignSpark is the perfect platform to host this kind of Challenge. It’s exciting to be tackling a meaningful, real-world problem, and to that effect we’re asking for a serious commitment from entrants. We don’t want vague unproven concepts, we’re looking for full design files alongside a working design and demo video.”