TransientDetect TD•Edge and TD•Cloud

TransientDetect is an Australian water technology company based at Tonsley, South Australia, founded by CEO Kale Needham. It addresses pressure transients, the fast pressure surges often called water hammer that stress buried pipes and, according to the company, drive more than 60% of leaks and breaks. It was engaged by SA Water in 2022 to reliably detect these fast-moving events and later joined the Imagine H2O Asia accelerator.

The solution pairs TD•Edge, a compact, ultra-low-power field device designed and made in Australia that samples pressure continuously at 100 Hz and runs the Snip detection algorithm at the edge, with TD•Cloud, a software platform for water engineers. TD•Cloud ingests high-frequency data with under 10 minutes latency, uses machine learning to link events to root causes such as pump, valve or customer operations, flags the most damaging transients and estimates cumulative pressure fatigue to predict pipe end of life. Customers include Australian utilities such as SA Water, South East Water and Greater Western Water.

• TD•Edge sensor: rugged, ultra-low-power device with continuous 100 Hz pressure sampling and years of battery life.
• Edge AI: the Snip algorithm runs on the device to detect transients with more than 97.5% accuracy.
• TD•Cloud analytics: ingests high-frequency data with under 10 minutes latency and shows events on a dashboard.
• Root-cause analysis: machine learning links transients to pumps, valves or customer-side operations.
• Pressure-fatigue modelling: hybrid physics and AI models estimate cumulative fatigue and predict asset end of life.
• Leak indication: early identification of leak reflections in the pressure signal.

Vietnamese water supply companies can install TD•Edge at pumping stations and trunk mains with frequent bursts to find the pumps or valves causing damaging surges. Utilities pursuing non-revenue water reduction programmes can use fatigue estimates to prioritise pipe replacement. Industrial parks with their own distribution networks can check whether large customers create pressure transients.

Utilities can detect pressure transients with more than 97.5% accuracy and identify root causes with over 90% accuracy, as reported in the South East Water case study. Linking transient stress to leaks and breaks helps prioritise mitigation on high-risk mains. Fatigue-based end-of-life estimates support capital planning and extending pipe asset life, reducing non-revenue water and service disruptions.

Water utilities across Southeast Asia are under pressure to reduce non-revenue water and manage ageing pipe networks with limited capital. Conventional loggers sample too slowly to capture fast pressure surges, so high-frequency IoT sensing combined with AI analytics is emerging as a way to move from reactive repair to predictive asset management.

TransientDetect is headquartered at Tonsley, South Australia, and is led by founder and CEO Kale Needham. Its timeline lists SA Water engagement in 2022, TD•Cloud pilots in 2023, TD•Edge Gen 1 in 2024 and Gen 2 pilots with utilities in Australia and Southeast Asia in 2025. It was part of Imagine H2O Asia's sixth cohort (2025) and the GovTech Global Alliance GSUP programme. The founding year is not stated on the website.