Trey Welstad stands at his booth in the Commerical 2 building on the North Dakota State Fairgrounds, next to his demonstration kit for his Watchdog Home Monitory sensor.

As anyone with a basement in the state of North Dakota can attest, there’s nothing worse than the aftermath of a rainstorm paired with a broken sump pump. In such circumstances, the sooner one can address the situation the better, and a born-and-raised Minot entrepreneur has developed a simple and hassle-free solution for detecting and tracking the conditions of a home.

Trey Welstad unveiled his Watchdog Home Monitor sensor to the public for the first time at the North Dakota State Fair in the Commercial 2 building. A coder since he was 12, Welstad eventually developed more interest in the hardware aspect of technology, working with custom circuit boards, printed circuit boards and microprocessors. Welstad initially conceived of the device after coming home from a trip to find his basement flooded.

“I just didn’t go downstairs for a few days,” Welstad said. “So I built a little prototype with some off-the-shelf kind of microprocessors. I wanted to do stuff in real life. I said, ‘Well, I’ve always wanted to make a product too, so let’s work on that.'”

The Watchdog Home Monitor has a streamlined approach compared to other so-called smart devices on the market, and is as close to “plug and play” as one can get. A small white box with a five-foot cable and dongle at the end, it could almost be mistaken for an old iPad charger. Inside the Watchdog is a custom circuit board, developed from the ground up with a Wi-Fi chip. Once paired with a user’s email or cell phone, the user can move on with life, unless the Watchdog detects an issue.

Essentially a one-man operation, Welstad has found ways to stay small while developing and refining his concept.

“My wife helps me a lot. In the last week, we got some blisters on our fingers. We put these things together and assembled them right here in town,” Welstad said. “I did hire a couple of freelance developers that helped me with the code because I just didn’t have quite enough time on my own. They helped me take my basic version and expand it and made it work a lot better and smoother and faster.”

Welstad demonstrated the process at his booth during the fair, illustrating how the system responds and communicates in seconds, saying that the Watchdog was designed with simplicity and ease of access in mind. After plugging in the device, and connecting a phone number or an email to it, it generates a webpage that provides real-time information on temperature and humidity in the room and more pertinently alerts the user the instant its censors detect water on the floor, allowing the user to mitigate or address the issue even if several states away.

“I’m trying to make this as simple as it can be. It’s supposed to be for snowbirds. Generally, that’s a little bit older person. They don’t want to deal with apps and all the ongoing things you have to worry about,” said Welstad, “So set it up. You don’t have to worry about going down there every year to change the batteries. Just set it and let it go, and let it do its thing, and have a little peace of mind.”

The Watchdog Home Monitor is available for $49 on Amazon and doesn’t involve a subscription or any recurring fees. They are also on sale at Welstad’s booth, who has been making the most of his opportunity to showcase his product to the public at the State Fair.

“This is the first time really getting to show the public this product. Some people don’t understand exactly what it does, but once they do, they’re like, ‘Oh, crap, that is exactly what I need,'” Welstad said. “Everyone’s got their water problem story, and I did too, and that’s how I came up with this.”