I bought 4 Ecowitt WH51 sensors–and they’ve worked great in the potted plants. However, they aren’t very good for what I specifically want–which is to measure the soil moisture of my lawn. The main reason being–they stick up so if anybody or anything (I.e., my kid, my dog, me, etc.) step on it, it’s almost a guaranteed breakage. Placing them towards the edge so they’re out of the way helps, but then I’m not able to measure the specific areas of the lawn that are more likely to be indicative of the overall moisture (i.e., these areas are more likely to have shade from fences, etc.).
Every single moisture sensor has the “battery” part sticking straight up which means it’s going to bend the sensor blade when it’s hit–Mi Flora, Ecowitt, WirelessTags, etc.). I’m not worried about “losing” them… are there any that sit flat against the ground? Or have a separate sensor blade from the communication/battery portion?
I also have the WH51. I just moved them to the edge of my law in places out of the way. When doing tests it was still pretty good at giving me the measurements I wanted.
I am keeping an eye on the GeoDrops though. These sit flat. Not sure about integration’s or anything yet as they are in the testing phase but if they have a HA integration eventually they would probably fit the bill.
This looks like it’s EXACTLY what I want. Definitely going to keep my eye on that–says they’re shipping in 2024. Wonder if it’s too late to sign up for the Beta…? EDIT: Looks like Beta opens tomorrow–serendipitous!
Doesn’t hurt to try but you want them down in the ground so you get a good reading for moisture deeper. If you have it too high you get just the surface reading. You want your lawn to have good moisture deeper for the grass roots.
In some of my irrigation zones I have a couple and average them out to give me an idea of that zone. I then have my irrigation evaluate it all and determine where and how long to water it the next day if needed. They work really well.
I tried a few others but they either didn’t work right or crapped out over time. These have worked nicely.
I’ve seen this device before and have been interested in it. They are a bit pricey but this is home automation, we expect to pay out the nose for our hobby! I’m curious about this “buried underground” thing, so do you run the wire to an ESP that’s powered by solar or something to get it back to your HA? This is really intriguing to me, I would be open to this so long as I can remember where I bury them before I go adding a new garden
Bury the sensor at root level. Since the sensor takes an average across the blade, for a precise reading at a particular depth, bury it horizontally such that water will not pool up on the blade.
So if interested in lawn moisture, bury it horizontally, thin edge up, at the root level of the lawn.
The WH51 is a wireless sensor. It will not work if buried. The vegetronix is a hard-wired sensor.
FWIW, I actually was able to grab two GeoDrops devices and they have been working fantastically–so much so that I forget that they’re there. Unfortunately, no HASS support (yet) but for now they’ve been fantastic on their own.
I’m eager to try exactly this. Can I ask what you have the VH400 plugged into? Do you have the Vegetronix hub or something else? Any chance you’ve got a blogpost somewhere that details what you did?
