Elecrow GrowCube Integration (smart plant watering system)

[robotedward]

EDIT: This is no longer being actively worked on because there’s a more complete integration available for GrowCube (I created a full Elecrow GrowCube integration) which you should use instead.

Hi, I’ve been working on a custom component to provide an integration for the Elecrow GrowCube plant watering system.

It’s early stages yet but I’ve implemented reading the current sensor values from the system.
I’m confident I’ll be able to get watering controls working as well but before then I’d like to see if this version works on anyone else’s setup!

Installation
Component is available to install via HACS from my repo: GitHub - RobotEdward/homeassistant-growcube: HACS custom component for testing pygrowcube

The python module and CLI I’ve written is also available on PyPi as pygrowcube: pip install pygrowcube

Help Needed
If you’ve got a GrowCube and are able to give the module a try I’d be really grateful to know if it works and help debug etc.

One thing that would be really useful is to know if the device identifier returned by GrowCube is unique per individual device or just for this model. If you get it installed via Home Assistant this is visible as the device name if you click on your GrowCube Device. On my system it’s GrowCube 4063809. Please let me know if yours is the same or different

[ryushi (Jason)]

My Growcube has a different identifier than yours.

[robotedward]

Ahh that’s good to know. Thanks. Means I can rely on that as a unique identifier.

Did the integration work okay for you?
There are still some states at the moment that I know cause it to fail (out of water etc)

[makeitworktech (Aaron)]

Hi, how did you manage to set it’s IP address without knowing how to identify it on your network? I can find no Mac address in the GrowCube app so I can’t tell which device on my network is the cube… Any ideas?

Edit: Got it by shutting off the cube and seeing which device went offline. That’s annoying and the app should say at least the Mac address of the device.

Works fine in HA, GrowCube 12957353

Would be nice to see controls for manual watering at some point!

[rojexx (Roger S)]

Mine arrived from China yesterday and will feedback when setup.

[robotedward]

Oh interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I think I did something similar when it first arrived to find the IP Address.

I think the app gets told the new IP Address at some point in the network setup stage but I haven’t been able to see this in my network traffic captures. This seems to be backed up by the fact the GrowCube app doesn’t seem to be able to find an existing GrowCube device that is already on the same network with out going through the setup process again.

I’m working on:

• making the HA integration more robust and informative for various error states
• displaying watering history
• manual watering
• setting auto-watering parameters from in HA

Slow progress 'cause of the day-job but will hopefully get onto those over the next few weeks.

[makeitworktech (Aaron)]

Awesome, I look forward to it! I feel you about the day job!
I made a YT video about this device, so you may get some more requests… sorry!

GrowCube - Bring Plant Care to your Smart Home!

[parsapolis (Sia)]

I also get a different identifier but I’m having some issues:

1. There are no entities in the device page but the integration did create 6 sensors
2. The sensors stopped updating after a reboot.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

I do have Home Assistant and the GrowCube on different SSIDs and vlans but that’s probably not an issue since it did manage to connect initially and worked until the reboot.

[parsapolis (Sia)]

I deleted the integration and added it back. It’s working for now

[parsapolis (Sia)]

Stopped working. No reboot this time.

[jonnybergdahl]

Sure your phone isn’t connected at the same time? Growcube only accepts one connection at a time.

You could try out my integration instead, it keeps the connection open so other apps can’t hijack the connection.

I created a full Elecrow GrowCube integration

I have created a custom integration for the Elecrow Growcube, based off my growcube-client Python library. You can install the integration using HACS, see instruction on the Github page. The integration adds sensors for temperature, humidity and four sensors for moisture. It adds four controls for watering, this activates the pump for 5 seconds for the given channel. [integration1] It also adds all diagnostics sensors such as device lock, sensor disconnect warnings and pump blocked warnings…

[robotedward]

Thanks Jonny - I was just returning here to advise people to check out your integration instead. GitHub - jonnybergdahl/HomeAssistant_Growcube_Integration: Elecrow Growcube integration for Home Assistant

The errors people are getting above seem to be socket timeouts so changed IP or another client connecting. It was fun learning how Growcube works and doing my first HA integration but I’m just not having the time to maintain it and Jonny’s integration is much more full-featured and robust.

[parsapolis (Sia)]

Yes pretty sure. My phone is always on my main VLAN and SSID and the GrowCube is on my IOT Vlan and SSID (the app wont let you connect on a different SSID. What I noticed this morning is that the connection is timing out and reconnects in 10-15 min intervals

@jonnybergdahl I’m trying to move over to your integration but I’m not able to connect. I’ll hop over to your post to report in more detail.