I have a couple of the Flower Care wireless soil moisture sensors (they also go under other brand names such as WANFEI, xiaomi, and others). The sensors appear to be very sensitive to their connection to the soil. The indicated moisture level can drop 20% in a minute, and jump up and down. I am attempting to automate a drip watering using the sensors, but am uncertain whether they are stable enough for the job.
Other than simply packing the sensor tightly into the soil, does anyone have relative experience with these or other similar sensors?
Thanks, Ron
Yes they are very dependant on contact with the soil.
I used to use a MiFlora sensor that was waterproofed for use outside. Every time I moved it I would have to recalibrate what “dry” was.
I’m now using a wired vegetronix sensor connected to an ESP board running ESPHome.
The great thing about this sensor is that I can bury it horizontally at the root level of my grass in a non-trafficked area which gives much more consistent results. This is the past 7 days. 50% is pretty much saturated.
How are you measuring the rain? Some weather service (cloud) or do you have a sensor? And in that case, is watering counting as rain?
Why “since 9am” and not “in the past 24hours” (so you will remove those vertical drops)?
