Hi all
I’m looking for earth moisture sensors.
Here in Switzerland the first result is always Gardena Smart Watering. But on one hand I don’t want buy a full ecosystem, I just need the sensor and on the other hand it doesn’t seem to be properly integrated in HA.
Are there any other solutions? I haven’t found anything.
Zigbee, Zwave or WiFi doesnt matter.
Anyone any experiences? 
Cheers
Marco
I believe Wireless Sensor Tags make them, but you need a hub. I have not used the moisture sensors, but the tags integrate with HA (although you have to do it via configuration.yaml).
I use these on a Wemos D1 Mini:
They output an analog value and read it using the adc platform:
sensor:
- platform: adc
pin: A0
You could the Xiaomi Mi Flower Care Touch Sensor give a try.
Thank you.
This would be great, but as I understand it, it only supports BT connection. So it will be hard to implement it into HA, wouldn’t it?
@stevemann , thanks for the idea. But I wan’t to have it running with battery and I’m having bad experience with ESP devices and batteries.
@Stiltjack , this look quite good. How can you integrate it into HA? Is there an addon or do you need a backdoor?
Docs are here:
As I say, I haven’t used the moisture sensor, but the tags are pretty easy to set up and use. One thing, though, with the tags, is that the batteries become unreliable at low temperatures (I see you live in Switzerland). Something to do with condensation, I think, but the moisture sensors would presumably be sealed, which the tags are not.
Ok, I think I couldn’t use this (I’m running HA on a NUC in a rack), but I could use this with the corresponding python lib and MQTT.
But what is the transmission distance of these small BT devices?
10-12m including a windows front is possible?
@Stiltjack , thanks. I’m gonna check them. What do you mean with low temperatures (it’s quite relative 
)?
The developer’s website talks about throwing a tag inside your freezer but I could never make that work - battery lasted about a day. As I say, I think the issue was condensation because the basic tags are not sealed - you pry the back off to change the battery. The moisture sensor is sealed so you can’t replace the battery - it’s supposed to last a couple of years.
There’s a FAQ page which answers a lot of questions - I see that I should have been putting my fridge monitoring tag in a ziploc bag…
On range, I’ve had a tag monitoring temperature in my garden shed 25-30m away from the house. The tag manager covers the whole house easily.
Great thank you very much.
PS: if you compare Switzerland with a freezer, you have wrong expectations of our country
We barely have days with less then 0deg in winter anymore and hardly any snow in the lowlands.
Hi @msvb04 , et all,
I’m having the same “problem” here.
I want to build a smart irrigation system with HASS, but having the garden all around the house and HASS running on a server in house doesn’t make it easy in terms of communication.
Since I already have a reasonable zwave network inside the house end to end, I was trying to make use of it to report the moisture sensor readings and opening/closing the water valves.
Alas I can’t find any solution plug&play out-of-the-box, and for my case at least using bluetooth is completely out of question, it would never work.
Then there is the problem of power ratings of all the different devices on the market… the moisture sensors typically work with 5V DC, the analog output accepted by most A/D modules is in the range of 0-10V DC, those modules typically require 12V DC to work (or somewhere between 9V and 30V DC), and last but not least most water valves work on 24V AC… talking about power requirements nightmare…
Also on a sad note I see most threads about plant watering are for indoors use, we see a lot of sensors with the circuitry on display, while I need (and I suspect you do to) robust IP54 or similar sensors and decoders to be outdoor 365 days a year, with sun and rain hitting them hard with no damage or risk of failure. Most projects we can find on the internet are POCs, kids play, not at all suitable for real life use outside.
Please do share here in this thread if you (or anyone else) finds a robust solution that easily integrates with HASS, and is able to work trouble free outdoors.
Cheers,
-jprates
@jprates, regarding the sensor, I’m testing this solution
LILYGO®TTGO t higrow ESP32 WiFi e batteria Bluetooth DHT11 temperatura del suolo sensore elettrolitico fotometrico di umidità walk280|temperature and humidity sensor|temperature and humiditybatteries batteries - AliExpress
the BME280 kit, as this use the wifi…
someone already implemented it
my idea is to combine the sensore with a solar panel and use this guy to recharge the sensor and the esp to control the pump…
it’s a work in progress
hey, any update on the test?
Hello, I re up the post 
also interested in moisture sensor for garden. Any experience to share please ? Thank you
I use the xioami miflora sensors, but connected to an eps32, which then gets the data into HA.
I found a SIGNIFICANT (ie x3 or x4 the range) increase in BT range with the ESP when “upgrading” from an esp32 dev kit to an olimex esp32 poe. I have a miflora about 20m away from the esp and it picks it up, whereas before was 5m max.
I have a cheap capacitive sensor in my garden. When I collected my calibration data I was surprised at the very narrow range between bone-dry and underwater wet. I won’t be relying on it to control the activation of the sprinklers. Maybe if the average reading is wet then I might use that as a signal to not add water if a shower had recently soaked the garden.
I’ve been using the Plaid Systems Zigbee moisture sensors
Had to put an outdoor zigbee repeater to reach my raised beds.
If I did it again, I’d look into a esp32 lora solution due to my garden is a good 30 feet away from the house and the chicken wire around the garden does interferes with the sensors
Thank,you for your recommendations