Zigbee flower and plant sensors for soil moisture + light + temperature + humidity?

Hedda · January 25, 2021, 2:36pm

Anyone know of a small inexpensive battery-powered Zigbee flower/plant sensors for soil moisture?

Does anyone other than me think there is a need for a small battery-operated Zigbee-based flower sensor for indoor houseplants with features such as; capacitive soil moisture + lumen + temperature + humidity sensors, preferably packaked in a product designed to look good and work well with third-party home automation software/hubs, as well as being small and relatively inexpensive as want one for each and every flower-pot inside the house?

Does anyone know of relatively low-cost Zigbee devices that meet all or most of those requirements?

The use case is for us with a Zigbee adapter and using with the ZHA integration or Zigbee2MQTT.

Note! To clarify, please understand that I am not looking or asking for a Bluetooth-based solution, as instead, I am specifically looking for a Zigbee-based product or hardware with multiprotocol support.

Basically what I am looking for is an inexpensive Zigbee-based alternative to “Xiaomi Mi Flora” (as Xiaomi MiFlora uses Bluetooth/BLE and do not use hardware which can support Zigbee firmware).

I guess technically it could also make use of a “hygrometer” to measure water in the soil?

For reference see these examples of product designs with would work in a small flower pot, but please note these do unfortunately not all use hardware with Zigbee support or have multiprotocol support:

https://wiki.hackerspace.pl/projects:xiaomi-flora

LilyGO TTGO HiGrow is ESP32 WiFi-based but otherwise almost perfectly matches that description however I would instead like to use Zigbee and some type of standard battery that is widely available.

https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/11/10/ttgo-t-higrow-is-a-wifi-bluetooth-connected-soil-temperature-moisture-sensor/

As far as I know, Spruce Spoil Moisture Sensors by Plaid Systems is currently the only existing commercial Zigbee-based product that you can already buy which matches most of the description, except that is relatively expensive and large (plus it has an ugly colour and design that does not fit indoor flowers IMHO, though in its defence its size and price are probably due to it being fully waterproof as primarily design to outdoor use in your vegetable garden rather than potted plants indoors).

DIYRuZ (modkam.ru) community do have an open-source hardware design for a Zigbee DIY Soil Moisture Sensor Flower board designed based on an older Texas Instruments CC2530 based radio module but I for one would not mind seeing a version similar to that as a commercial Zigbee flower sensor available as a complete kit with enclosure and/or an all finished product available for purchase, and it should preferably be based on the much newer Texas Instruments CC2652 based radio modules.

jcfaf · February 10, 2021, 6:08pm

Hi, I am in search for the same solution but not for my flowers. I use a seed propagator without a thermostat and want to stick a soil temperature zigbee sensor so it can trigger on/off the zigbee outlet where the propagator is connected to. Please kindly share if you find out options from outside this forum! Thanks for your post!

Hedda · February 11, 2021, 1:58pm

I posted same question in https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy/discussions/647 but no suggestions yet.

waverider · July 4, 2021, 2:40pm

I’m looking as well for an outdoor Zigbee soil moisture sensor.

Hedda · July 4, 2021, 3:22pm

Spruce Soil Moisture Sensor are designed to work outside in vegetable gardens, but are expensive.

They are also rather ugly and have relativly large design, however usually don’t matter in a garden.

Vahaldor · July 29, 2021, 8:19pm

Any new discoveries in this vector of nterest? I just bought miflora and the bluetooth does not even cross my windows five meters away from RPi, kind of useless in our concrete-steel house

Hedda · August 9, 2021, 2:42pm

No specific device news, but in related news, Espressif announced ESP32-H2 SoC with Zigbee support (thought there are no news released about Zigbee stack, SDK, libraries or code for it as of yet).

ESP32-H2 RISC-V WiSoC announced with Zigbee 3, Thread, and Bluetooth LE 5.2 - CNX Software (cnx-software.com)

Announcing ESP32-H2, an IEEE 802.15.4 + Bluetooth 5.2 (LE) RISC-V SoC | Espressif Systems

janbenes · August 12, 2021, 1:29pm

I do not measure soil moisture, but the speed at which the flower leafs go down. I use laser ranger once an 4 hours and I set up derivative sensor to calculate movement per hour and if it is more than 5mm/hr it sends me Telegram notification. The leafs are BIG, so for smaller flower speed should be less. It works for about three months on battery charge. I also measure battery. If you are interested in esphome yaml it is here:

globals:
  - id: bc2
    type: long int
    restore_value: yes
    initial_value: "0"

  - id: a_input
    restore_value: no
    type: float
    initial_value: "0.0"

  - id: d_input
    restore_value: no
    type: float
    initial_value: "0.0"

  - id: i
    type: char
    restore_value: no
    initial_value: "0"

  - id: d_count
    type: char
    restore_value: no
    initial_value: "0"

esphome:
  name: mqtt_flower2
  platform: esp8266
  board: esp12e

  on_loop:
    then:
      lambda: |-
        id(i)++;
        if (id(i) <= 10) {
          id(internal_a0).update();
          id(one_d).update();
          id(a_input) = id(a_input) + id(internal_a0).state/10.0;
          if (isnan(id(one_d).state)) {
            //ESP_LOGD("main", "################################ Error NAN");
            }
          else {
            id(d_count)++;
            id(d_input) = id(d_input) + id(one_d).state;
            }
          //ESP_LOGD("main", "########## a_input: %f, d_input: %f, one_d: %f", id(a_input), id(d_input), id(one_d).state);
          delay(50);
          }
        if (id(i) == 10) {
          id(bc2)++;
          if((id(bc2)%4 == 1) || (id(a_input) <= 3.1)) {  
            pinMode(14, INPUT);
            float di = id(d_input)/id(d_count);
            id(flower2_battery).publish_state(id(a_input));
            id(flower2_distance).publish_state(di);
            //ESP_LOGD("main", "################### Sending values. d_count: %d, one_d: %f, d_input: %f, Volts: %f, BC2: %d, Millis: %d", id(d_count), id(one_d).state, di, id(a_input), id(bc2), millis());
            }
          else {
            pinMode(14, INPUT);
            id(should_sleep).publish_state(0);
            id(should_sleep).publish_state(1);
            //ESP_LOGD("main", "################### NOT sending values. one_d: %f, d_input: %f, Volts: %f, BC2: %d, Millis: %d", id(one_d), id(d_input), id(a_input), id(bc2), millis());
            }
          }
        if (id(i) > 11) {
          id(i) = 11;
          }
        if (millis() > 30000) {
          pinMode(13, INPUT);
          ESP.deepSleep(1800000000, WAKE_RF_DEFAULT);
          }
        delay(50);

wifi:
  ssid: "IoT"
  password: "xxxxxxxxxx"
  manual_ip:
    static_ip: 10.0.0.48
    gateway: 10.0.0.138
    subnet: 255.255.255.0
    dns1: 8.8.8.8
    dns2: 8.8.4.4
  reboot_timeout: 30s
  fast_connect: on

logger:

ota:

http_request:

switch:
  - platform: gpio
    pin: 14
    name: vl_power
    id: vl_power
    restore_mode: ALWAYS_ON
  
i2c:
  sda: GPIO5
  scl: GPIO4

sensor:
  - platform: template
    id: should_sleep
    name: should_sleep
    internal: true
    lambda:
      return 0;
    on_value_range:
      above: 0.5
      then:
        - lambda: |-
        - delay: 100ms
        - deep_sleep.enter: deep_sleep_1

  - platform: template
    name: "Flower2 Distance"
    id: flower2_distance
    update_interval: 10s # 500ms
    retain: true
    unit_of_measurement: "mm"
    accuracy_decimals: 3
    lambda:
      return {};

  - platform: vl53l0x
    id: one_d
    name: one_d
    retain: true
    internal: true
    address: 0x29
    accuracy_decimals: 4
    long_range: False
    unit_of_measurement: "mm"
    filters:
      - multiply: 1000.0

  - platform: adc
    pin: A0
    name: internal_a0
    internal: true
    accuracy_decimals: 4
    id: internal_a0
    update_interval: 10s
    filters:
      multiply: 7.219

  - platform: template
    id: flower2_battery
    name: "Flower2 Battery"
    retain: true
    accuracy_decimals: 3
    unit_of_measurement: "V"
    update_interval: 10s
    lambda:
      return {};

deep_sleep:
  id: deep_sleep_1
  run_duration: 2s
  sleep_duration: 3400s
  
mqtt:
  broker: 10.0.0.54
  username: janb
  password: xxxxxxxxxx
  birth_message:
    topic: mqtt_flower2/status
    payload: 
    qos: 2
  will_message:
    topic: mqtt_flower2/status
    payload: 
  on_message:
    - topic: mqtt_flower2/ota_mode
      payload: 'ON'
      then:
        - deep_sleep.prevent: deep_sleep_1
    - topic: mqtt_flower2/sleep_mode
      payload: 'ON'
      then:
        - deep_sleep.enter: deep_sleep_1

hijinx · August 23, 2021, 8:36am

I use an ESP32 with esphome as a BLE–>WiFi gateway and have one sit somewhere in every room I have a miflora. All you need is a cheap esp32 devkit board a usb charger and micro usb cable. No external components, soldering etc…

Definitely I would like a zigbee alternative…

Hedda · August 24, 2021, 7:39am

FYI, ITead has now released a wired external “Sonoff MS01 Smart Soil Moisture Sensor” addon that is meant to be paired with Sonoff TH10 or Sonoff TH16 (ESP8266 based devices) to monitor your plants soil moisture, but those make for very bulky and unpractical sensors for monitoring indoor potted plants like flowers, like how most people have in their windows. It also does not include other sensors like for; UV or lumen, temperature and humidity for the air.

Hedda · August 25, 2021, 9:44am

Just found this other DIY project based on nRF52840 which potentially could support Zigbee:

It uses these basic “capacitive soil moisture sensor” boards originally designed for Arduino:

Hedda · August 25, 2021, 11:03am

Same dev also made a simpler Plant Watering Sensor Zigbee open source hardwaee project but with CC2530 and based on the DIYRuZ Flower project that he is also selling as EFEKTA by EFEKTALAB.

Made by Andrew Lamchenko (a.k.a. smartboxchannel) and sold on Tindie with shipping from Russia:

https://www.tindie.com/products/diyberk/plant-watering-sensor-efekta-zigbee2mqtt/

https://github.com/smartboxchannel/Plant-Watering-Sensor-Zigbee

https://zigbee.blakadder.com/EFEKTALAB_EFEKTA_PWS.html

https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/EFEKTA_PWS.html

La-te · September 4, 2021, 11:31pm

Is anyone knowing if that works with ZHA as well? Also, I would be interested in knowing how well it works overall.

Remco_van_Geel · September 18, 2021, 6:11am

Looks like they are out of stock at the moment. I will buy some different sensors and test and compare them.

SmartKyle · September 29, 2021, 1:49pm

Did anyone end up purchasing this? Is it any good?

Vahaldor · September 29, 2021, 2:05pm

No, but it looks like what we were looking for. If I understand it correctly, it returns only one number - moisture, maybe the battery but nothing else as the BT MiFlora.

Do you plan to try it? I would try some, maybe three to check the zigbee mesh outside my farraday box flat.

cjborchert · September 29, 2021, 3:39pm

I’ve got a couple on order for the front and back lawns outside and can report back when I have feedback (although delivery from Russia seems to be taking some time). Will move my Mi Flora BT ones inside and run the EFEKTA sensors via ZigBee2MQTT. The transmitting distance isn’t very far, but sight lines have a lot in the way and Mi Flora just isn’t up to it on its own (despite the unexpected, but perhaps just lucky, weather resilience).

Dieter · September 30, 2021, 3:45pm

I also ordered one yesterday from Tindie.
Will check the integration into HA when it arrives from Russia.

AndrejDelany · October 1, 2021, 1:08pm

Is the EFEKTA sensor water resistant and suitable for outdoor usage?

Hedda · October 1, 2021, 1:38pm

Definitely not, but I guess that you could probably modify it to be so by wrapping it with self-vulcanizing silicone rubber tape / self-fusing silicone rubber electrical tapes or something similar.