Has anyone found a way to make esphome/esp32’s connect actively to the mi flora plant sensors?
I have a lot of sensors, and several esp32’s to read from them because they’re far apart.
Some of the esp32’s run on batteries, and as usual, they just listen passively to the readings.
Because of this, I have to keep the esp32’s powered for long periods of time, or have some automation on the HA or esp32 side counting measurements until I have all that I need.
What I need is an active esp32 based reader, so that I can wake it up every 6 hours, collect readings from it’s sensors, and then go back to sleep.
The docs say
This component will track the temperature, humidity and optionally the battery level of the MiFlora device every time the sensor sends out a BLE broadcast.
So I don’t think so.
I know that’s the way it works. But I think the miflora app does some active polling of the devices. It also knows the battery state of the devices.
That’s what I hoped the esp32 could do.
I’ve built a (sort of) way around it: When the esp32 powers up/wakes up, Node red waits until it has received all the sensor values it’s waiting for. After that it goes into deep sleep for a few hours.
The only problems with that so far are 1) The sensors apparently send data only when the values change, meaning they will have to change after the esp has woken up. 2) Sensor readings sent during the sleep period are lost.
That means it can take a while before it can go to sleep, draining the battery.
I have been using always-powered devices, and they work fine. But because some of them will be placed far away from the nearest power outlet, I’m experimenting with a 18650 battery + solar panel for charging.