I am looking into getting some soil moisture sensors for irrigation control (rainmachine) and a few separate areas with smaller potted plants via a Wi-Fi water valve on the hose faucet.
Eccobee has some sensors but Amazon says the response time is 70 seconds… that’s probably too long for my smaller potted plants.
I also just came across Plaid on Amazon but they are $50 a sensor but I guess it it works…
Sonoff also has a soil sensor Soil sensor for the the TH10 and TH16, benefit is it’s not battery. Only thing is I have a TH10 with a temp sensor and when it was unplugged the value in HA stayed the last value for days. So if the sensor fails for some reason I won’t know until I see dead plants. I also have a Tuya temp sensor just like the Sonoff TH10 and that one showed the sensor was off line when I unplugged it.
All sensors except the sonoff need battery power have, I would likely try to convert them to usb power if I can.
I have seen some guides to make your own but I’m just not sure, I’d love some guidance…
That’s an idea, although it wound need a BT proxy as you say since it’s a good distance to the garden. I’m also wondering how water prof they are as they seem like indoor sensors. Still I really like the size of them and they would be really usefully for indoor plants.
Do you use yours outdoors at all?
Do you know what hardware is needed for are proxy? I s esp32 a board lol I don’t really know much, I did a search for BT proxy but wasn’t sure what was needed.
Based on esp32, so ESPHome can be used.
Comes with battery and case.
Have USB port for charging, which could just be connected all the time in your case.
Is a capacitive sensor, so no direct soil contact and no pollution due to contact erosion.
+1 for Ecowitt. I have an Ecowitt weather station with four of these sensors attached. Good range. Cannot comment on absolute accuracy, since I have no reference. However, I tested them in the same spot and they give identical values.
I’ve been playing with a few sensors recently. One thing to keep an eye on in the capacitive vs resistive type of sensors. Some have reported the resistive type corroding and causing issue in their automated setup.
My main purpose was for outside in the yard so I know if an area is getting enough water.
I got the Tuya sensors. They are zigbee, resistive, big and white. Not a fan of them. They also report very frequently. In the first week the battery went from 100 to 60 but it has been stuck at 60 for the last week so I’ll keep an eye on it. I also don’t see it really moving a lot in terms of the moisture. Its sitting next to another sensor and the readings are different. They also measure soil temp. I’m not really a fan of it.
I also got the Ecowitt WH51. These are capcitive, green, not as big but work over RF. The fact that they work over RF means that you will need a SDR dongle on our HA install. I already had one for my water meter and luckily these are the same frequency so it picks up both. They report frequently and look pretty accurate. I see the moisture jump up when it rains, then it starts to fade off in the following days. I actually ordered a few more to add. They still stick up a bit so you have to watch for them when mowing and they do have a flashing red light on them that you may want to cover up. But I like them.
I also grabbed the rainpoint sensor. Their are two versions, they call them wifi and bt however they really use RF. It looks like they got the BT version working but not the Wifi which I got so I’m waiting on them to figure that one out. They are resistive and measure soil temp. What I did like about them was that they lay flat on the ground. So you can mow over them if needed. So I may visit them again later or try to get my hands on one that works with HA.
So far that is all I got but I’ve been trying to get others to figure out what is the best. At this point I want to find a capcitive sensor that can lay flat.
Yeah I came across that, I’m just not really sure how it’s installed as it’s got 3 bare wires at the end. How does it connect… I’m assuming it connects to a small board but I don’t know much about them.
Do you know what kind of response time you are getting with eccobee? The stated 70 sec seems too long for what I need. Are you logging them in HA?
If you submerge the sensor in water how long does it take to register a change? If it’s 70 seconds I don’t it will work for me but honestly they are likely the cheapest setup at $22 a sensor plus the gateway.
Wow thanks, any idea how fast the response time is on the eccobee sensor setup? It seems compared to the Tuya the eccobee are a clear winner. I was planning on hiding the massive Tuya sensors in side bushes and we in the process of removing all the lawn so no mowing to worry about even if the eccobee are a lot smaller. Have you looked into plaid at all? I like their sensor as it goes deeper and is flat.
Dang that’s aswsome, just do to setup/ connect to HA? Is firmware already installed? That might be just what I’m looking for. If it can just be left wired that’s great. I’m wondering how fast the response time is?
It comes with a clean ESP chip, so you need to flash it with a serial device, but its through the USB-C port, so it is easy.
And yes, you can just leave the USB-C cable connected and you do not need the batteries then, but there is probably no harm in having it.
response time is as with ESPHome, you decide.
I have them all over my garden and response time is not an issue for garden watering. I’ve checked in HA and the fastest updates I found are every minute. I don’t know if this is a limitation of the sensor/gateway or of the integration (I use the HACS Ecowitt integration, not the HA official one).
The ecowitt sensors do report every 70s. I really don’t mind that. I don’t need up to the second reporting in my lawn. The more frequent the reports the more battery it will drain too. But it all depends on your use case.
The tuya is big. Not sure the size of your potted plants but that could be a problem. They also report very frequently which seems to drain the battery. I’ve been looking at github reports and looks like nobody has a way to adjust the reporting frequency of them.
Also, you don’t need an SDR for the Ecowitt devices, you can use their inexpensive WiFi gateway device that is supported by Home Assistant. Easier to setup than SDR if you’re looking for a simple solution.
