Need help with Atlas Scientific sensors

Third party integrations
1

Hey guys,

I’m new to the Home Assistant community and need help debugging my project.
Sorry in advance if my knowledge is quite basic. I have a background in Mechanical Engineering so my coding and automation skills are kinda basic !

I’m looking to automate my mushroom growing farm with HA. My first project is to automate the growroom humidifier.
I later wish to use the power of HA to automate various hardware such as fans, heaters etc… and monitor the growing conditions anytime anywhere.

The hardware I’m using is listed here :

The software I’m using:

  • Home Assistant OS running on my RPi4 (not contained)

I installed hassio on the RPi. I mounted the carrier on the RPi and connected the sensor to it. (I switched the sensor to I2C mode since the carrier board only supports this protocole)

My question is where do I go from now? How do I get HA to recognize my sensor and read its data if its directly wired into the RPi thats running the hassio instance?
I’ve read about ESPhome and Tasmota, but from my understanding, these addons are meant to work with sensors conneceted to esp chips to broadcast data over the internet.
Is there a way to manually add a sensor thats physically wired onto my RPi to hassio through the config yaml? If so, can you guys guide me through the process.

Thanks for your help!

1 Like
2

You’ll likely have to start from https://github.com/whitebox-labs/whitebox-raspberry-ezo and create a custom component for the board.

EDIT: You could likely take the Bosch BMP280 Environmental Sensor - Home Assistant integration as model, which is also I²C

3

Does it matter if the sensor I’m using is connected directly (wired in) to the Raspberry Pi thats running the Home Assistant OS?

4

Just wondering if you got anywhere with this?

I’ve just purchased a few of the Atlas Scientific ezo circuits and the Whitebox Tentacle T3 board as well. I’ve put the ezo circuits into I2C mode and the Raspberry Pi that the tentacle board is installed on has Atlas IoT Monitoring software running and the conductivity probe I have installed reads fine (I haven’t connected the temperature probe yet).

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I’ve setup MQTT as well hoping to grab this data for use in HA. I’m running the mqtt broker on the HA machine and so it points to my local HA ip.

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I wasn’t sure what to do next so I wanted to see if the Atlas IoT was indeed connecting properly so I used mqtt explorer and pointed it at my broker and was hoping to find the ‘Aquarium’ topic and some associated data and found this:

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In reviewing the sample at the bottom of the MQTT integration, I think I’m getting close; will post some templating to hopefully try to pull this info into HA properly.

EDIT:

Based on some other forum posts i tested things out like this:

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Creating Sensors like below, I ended up with “unknown” states for all those sensors (and I had waited for more than 60 seconds to ensure that the values updated). I can see them changing in MQTT explorer just not getting updated within HA.

sensor:

  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Reef EC TDS"
    state_topic: "Aquarium/EC/add100"
    unit_of_measurement: "ppm"
    value_template: "{{ value_json.TotalDissolvedSolids }}"
  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Reef EC Salinity"
    state_topic: "Aquarium/EC/add100"
    unit_of_measurement: ""
    value_template: "{{ value_json.Salinity }}"
  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Reef EC SG"
    state_topic: "Aquarium/EC/add100"
    value_template: "{{ value_json.SpecificGravity }}"
  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Reef EC Conductivity"
    state_topic: "Aquarium/EC/add100"
    unit_of_measurement: "µS/cm"
    value_template: "{{ value_json.microSiemens }}"
  - platform: mqtt
    name: "Reef EC Last Update"
    state_topic: "Aquarium/EC/add100"
    value_template: "{{ value_json.created_at }}"

also tried value_json[’ XXX '] in the developer template section and that seems to work, but again putting into the yaml config still leaves me with unknown values.

5

Any reason for choosing the Raspberry Pi? You can integrate the EZO sensors quite easily using an ESP8266 and ESPHome.

“EZO sensor circuits — ESPHome” EZO sensor circuits — ESPHome

To make things even easier, Atlas Scientific has a pool kit with the board and enclosure.

“Bare-Bones Wi-Fi Pool Kit | Atlas Scientific” Bare-Bones Wi-Fi Pool Kit | Atlas Scientific

1 Like
6

actually working this right now. trying to get module to flip to Ic2 mode and cannot seem to get it to go.
doing manual mode here

https://www.instructables.com/UART-AND-I2C-MODE-SWITCHING-FOR-ATLAS-SCIENTIFIC-E/

7

Hi there,

Im getting the readings in ESPHome for the EC sensor but it only returns the EC and not the TDS. Are you able to get the 4 individual readings or just EC?

8

Did you ever solve this? I just got my Pi up with the Atlas software and have it going into MQTT. I just need to configure the sensors.

9

FWIW, the Pi route allows me to connect this all up to a touchscreen. It’s nice setup.

10

Atlas sells a small i2c UUART toggler. I just got one and it’s super easy to use. I guess I likely won’t use it again, but it was fast to switch and saved me the trouble of dealing with the more manual process. You just plug it into USB power and hold a button.

11

thanks. i ended up buying one but figured it out before it ever showed up.

12

did you ever get this working? I am trying to do the ESPHome route, and it can’t find I2C scan can’t find the devices. My Atlas Pool kit came with the sensors already installed and they light up blue in the box, so I think they should be working, but the light doesn’t flash at all.

13

i did. there is instruction on their site to put it in the correct mode - link below. i bought the toggle unit as well but never ended up using it. mine is on shelf now and not in use and my HA crashed so i cannot really help much more. sorry.

IC2 Mode Switching

14

I should have updated this. I did get it working. It actually works great. There’s another thread going about pool equipment and I posted my YAML in there.