Would you please share your myhomeiot modifications? I concur with the idea that there’s some problem with the disconnect, as it is supposed to be making the connections to read the values serially and only use one connection, but adding just one more miFlora (for a total of six) to a working esphome configuration tipped the whole thing over.
@fluxsmith please start a seperate new thread or find a other thread to discuss MiFlora Bluetooth configuration/optimization with ESPHome Bluetooth proxy as that is off-topic in this specific thread.
Thanks for this document!
Is the most common (non-professional) issue not over / under watering rather than optimization of crop production?
As a consumer / home user (it is home assistant we are talking about) i am ok with “toy” as none of my plants are for production, they just should not dry out or rot.
Over-watering / too much fertilizer is my biggest challenge inside my (very dry house) and very wet outdoors.
Quality for me is completely different from the quality required by my neighbors and their greenhouse production operations.
Sure, i was just saying it because many people in this post are expecting accuracy and they do not accept 20-30% moisture error in the measurement that most of these capacitive sensors show. Everything will depend on your needs and expectations
I’m also testing the new Tuya-Zigbee-Soil-Sensors in my home/garden the last two weeks and compared the measurment with 7 MiFlora-Sensors directly next to each other (which I’m using for one year pretty successful already).
I’m pretty dissatisfied with the Tuya-Sensors and would definitely return them, if I wouldn’t have ordered them from AliExpress. Two problems with them:
First: sensors change constantly (see picture)
- sensor 1: between 70-80%
- sensor 2: between 40-60%
Above that: their measurement is very different from each other even though thay are directly next to each other and also very different to what the seven MiFlora-Sensors are measuring. And the MiFloras are pretty much all in the same range (± 5%).
Picture below:
3 Likes
Mine is also having this major quality issues.
- Reporting too often so batteries were drained 30% in 3 days instead of lasting 1 year as in the product description.
- Moisture reporting is also not reliable, jumps from 76% to 90% in seconds and then back 76% leading to a rapid battery drain. Compared to analogue device 76% moisture seems accurate enough but when compared to MiFlora the values are almost double.
- Temperature is ok at the room values 22 C but once closed to zero or below it is 5 to 6 degrees higher than in reality.
- Size is really huge comparing to BLE MiFlora.
I have already opened a dispute on Aliexpress for return and refund due to quality issues. Let’s see what the seller is answering.
1 Like
After reading through the thread and getting an idea of where things are at, I was going to pick up a few MiFlora-type sensors for now, with the idea of upgrading to one of the open source zigbee designs in 6-12 months once they’re a bit more mature & easily available.
Top review on the AliExpress listing for the “Timethinker HHCC Flora” I was looking at says: it is working with zigbee2mqtt and Home Assistant without problems. I’m used to mistakes in the description on that site, but it seems oddly specific to be in a review. Is it possible that the latest revision has a chip & firmware with zigbee support, or is it more likely to just be a mistake?
I was considering buying a few even expecting BLE, so I’m also happy to report back on what turns up if there’s interest.
I came to the same conclusion, the B-Parasite open source option looks great but they need a PCB Way project or similar to allow easy ordering of the pre-built parts. At the moment it seems that you have to submit the Gerber files, make the changes listed on the issue thread and hope for the best.
I don’t see any MiFlora with Zigbee support, that would be great though.
I’m going to order a BLE model and test it with an esp32 as the receiver.
It looks like yours will arrive first so I’d love to hear your feedback.
1 Like
I am begging you! There is simply no off the shelf zigbee soil sensor available right now. Tried the tuya one but it is complete garbage.
Cool, well the ETA from China is showing 30 days right now, so we’ll see what turns up! After some additional digging for information I’m 95% expecting BLE only, so anything more would be a pleasant surprise.
My guess is either it’s a fake review to optimise the SEO for people like us, or a real review from someone using a combined Zigbee/BLE bridge and not realising which radio these specific devices are connected to. Price was good either way though, so I’m not worried if that does turn out to be the case.
Hi Raul, the product is sold on Aliexpress by different sellers. I bought it from yieryi Offical Store.
The ideea is not how often values are reported but how accurate are them. In my case moisture changes from 90 to 76/77 and than back to 90 in seconds. Many times per minute. This leads to a huge battery drain - 30% in just 3 days. Tested outside in the garden and inside in a pot with flower. Also in my case the reported moisture value is double than of the HHCC Mi Flora.
So if values is constant there is no need for reporting too often. You could report for example hourly if values are unchanged, but if for example there is a decrease/increase of 1%, 2% or 5% it should be reported immediately.
Hope it helps. If you need some more testing details please let me know as I am interested in having a reliable ZigBee product for indicating moisture on my lawn, my garden and for the flowers in the pots.
Best regards,
Silviu
Hi, Thanks for reaching out. My problem is that the sensor does not seem reliable.
At first i sticked one sensor in the ground and the soil moisture was around 40%, which was probably correct. Then about 10 days ago I emptied a bucked of water around it, and since then the value as been jumping between 70 and 80% (no rain since then).
Last friday the sensor was also super chatty. Every 30 seconds it posted 4 updates, like there was some kind of bug that made it produce more messages than needed.
Personally, I don’t consider a swing between 70-80% to be an unusable product. I’m never trying to water my plants to, say, 74% exactly. Basically, I’ve got plants that need little water (where I keep the soil drier… lower than 50%), “some” water (where I keep it around 50%), and “a lot of” water, where I try to keep it well above 50%. So, noise on the level of 10% isn’t a show-stopper for me.
It’s too bad you can’t adjust the reporting frequency. I understand Raul’s point about it being used for controlling irrigation controllers, where you’d need the frequent feedback, but I think many of us only need reporting every hour or so or when the measurements change dramatically. I expect that Zigbee has a configuration class for setting reporting frequency, so it would be nice to see the final product implement that.
1 Like
Also need to think if measurements make sense. 100% moisture means that there is the same volume of soil and water. 70% means already a lot of water.
Then you need to check the soil saturation. Avery soil saturates at a maximum level. That is why when you are watering water flow instantly out of the pot. Many soils saturate around 70-80%
A bast majority of the plants live at 40%.
Most of these sensors are just ultra low cost hardware with very poor design and null validation just to make profit.
I think it is important to focus in measurement rate, ZigBee or Bluetooth, size, battery life… But if the measurements are trash… You only have a piece of decoration. Just to be clear, it is just my opinion.
That’s not how my brain interprets the percentages for soil. Lots of measurements use percentage for concepts other than volume comparison (humidity, for example). Also, what if there were more water than soil, is that more than 100%? If anything, I think of soil moisture percentage as a measure against how much water the soil can hold (where any more water will just drain away, immediately). However, even that is not what is being measured. It’s really a measure of either conductivity or/and capacitance between the test contacts, which then gets translated to the manufacturer’s opinion on how wet the soil is that yields those electrical measurements.
Do not take this personal, please, but I think this is not open to personal interpretations. It is a magniture defined by the scientific society and characterized with formulas like density or acceleration among others.
It is true that there are two soil moistures, the volumetric and the gravimetric depending if the volume or the mass of the soil and water ratio are compared.
It is also not open to the manufacturer opinion of how wet is the soil. Two instruments from different manufacturers have to measure the same soil moisture. Also two instruments using two different measurement technologies like resistive or capacitive have to give the same measurement.
Here are some examples https://www.metergroup.com/en/meter-environment/measurement-insights/what-is-soil-moisture-science-behind-measurement
If there is more water than soil, soil moisture will be higher than 100%. Technically it is possible.
How much water the soil can hold is something different and evey soil will have different soil moisture saturation limit. Here are some examples https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/understanding-soil-water-content-and-thresholds-for-irrigation-management.html#:~:text=Saturation%20is%20the%20threshold%20at,60%20percent%20in%20clay%20soils.
I have nothing against a manufacturer making an instrument that gives an opinion about how wet is the soil. But if they are telling me that they are measuring soil moisture, they are fooling me. It is like saying that their speedometer is measuring their opinion of how fast goes the car in km/h instead of the relation between distance and time.
While I agree that, in soil science, there may be clear definitions of soil moisture for use in rigorous soil testing and publication in journals, I’d argue that nobody in the market for these Zigbee devices is planning to use them as such. The price-point people are looking for with these is around $20-30, and I think most people here are seeking to utilize these just to drive reminder automations or to discover if they’re over-watering a certain plant or if their irrigation system should skip a watering cycle. To use your speedometer analogy, I think it’s akin to a speedometer on a child’s go-kart showing approximate results. I wouldn’t think that the go-kart manufacturer is deliberately lying to me. I’d think that both they and I understand that what I’m buying is a toy.
I completly understand your point and I share it.
The problem comes when the manufacturer of these instruments announce to measure soil moisture with an accuracy of ±5% (like the tuya instrument). I think that is deliberately lying. Using the analogy of the speedometer they say that they are selling a real speedometer while delivering a go-cart speedometer and people are expecting the real anounced speedometer.
For example there are some measurements above from the tuya reporting a constant 80% while most of the soils saturate at 50-60%. I would believe a measurement of 40%. (Maybe im wrong because it was raining or constant watering, or a pot without holes on the botton retaining the water)
I used this with some success
[LSE01 -- LoRaWAN Soil Moisture & EC Sensor(https://Dragino LSE01)
Was routing LoRa packets via Helium to MQTT
That is until landscaper tore this piece of equipment into pieces one day. Have not had a chance to replace it.
Just come across a post for the ZigBee sensor in the home assistant Facebook group. Doesn’t seem to have the same fluctuations that we are seeing
https://smarthomescene.com/reviews/tuya-zigbee-plant-soil-sensor-gxm-01-review/