After about 5 or 6 months of use, I can confirm that all my sensors are still working and have the same behaviour. One is placed in the ground outdoor with temps currently around 0 degree Celsius, it just received a new set of batteries while it was still at 20% battery-level. Two more sensors are on their second battery as well, while the others are still on the first batteries.
So, battery-wise the (probably 2nd gen) Zigbee soil sensors are working well. Concerning the values, they are good for smaller pots and for the ground outdoor. Being placed in bigger pots, I discovered that they are sometimes measuring a too high moisture level for a certain period of time. I think that this on one side may be related to uneven moisture levels in the bigger pots. And on the other side while the sensors are sitting flat on the ground surface, their own plastic body may prevent drying out the moisture of the ground right below them. I would wish they had longer probes to reach closer to the plants roots, and in a bigger distance to their body. To bypass this issue, I just placed 2 sensors in bigger pots and concentrated on the sensor with the lower reported moisture value.
Maybe still a little too early in the development to even mention it as it currently is a one-man hobby project so progress is slow going, but FYI, the developer of the “Zigbee Home” project (open-source DIY firmware project aims to provide similar functionality to ESPHome) mentioned that he does have future plans to add a customizable soil moisture sensor as a “Zigbee Home” firmware example sample, so it is at least on his roadmap, and if and when available it should be possible to just use that CLI application to generate custom firmware for your own DIY Arduino-style hardware, like the “b-parasite” soil moisture sensor open-source hardware project.
If you can program code in Go programming language (or in C) then suggest check if can help out:
That should as an example allow one to make a DIY Zigbee flower and plant soil moisture sensors with configurations that in theory can be more easily customized and tweaked via the YAML configuration:
Hi,
thanks for the great collection of sensors and solutions!
I had the same need a few years ago and built a solution for my balcony garden. I’m currently investigating whether there is a broader market demand for such a sensor. The features of the sensor I’m going to sell are described on this page. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
Making it out of real wood sounds like a bad idea, will the wood not rot and/or take on mold/fungi if kept burried in the soil in a pot with a plant that needs to be watered often? Using wood should logically also be limiting for outdoor use?
What is the RRP list price point you are aiming for and where will you be shipping it from?
Suggest that you consider also adding a temperature sensor and a sunlight sensor if that is not way to costly.
The idea is to use a special kind of wood that’s also used for outdoor children’s toys on playgrounds and can withstand many years with direct soil contact. Thanks for your input – I’ll try to make this point clearer.
I can’t tell a price yet, the target is a high quality sensor with a reasonable price. We’ll be shipping from europe.
Good point about the additional sensors, at the moment the sensor features are reduced to the bare minimum. But I’d also like to have those two types of measurements and I’ll try my best to get it in.
I am sceptical as know that even pressure treated impregnated wood and root risistant wood do sooner or later go bad if make constant contact with wet soil or sand. Done some carpentry myself and built wood structure outdoors (including my kids Jungle Gym) and I do not believe that wood at any modern playgrounds make direct contact with soil or sand all the time. As far as I am aware they design them thse dahs so that there always only inorganic materials like steal or plastic this making contact with sand, soil or even concrete, acting as a barrier layer of protection from moisture/wetness. Yeah that did not build like that in the past but building science and experince has gotten better since then.
Even if the wood does not rot, water will transmit through. All wood is permeable to some degree, so it will allow moisture into the electronics. Perhaps there is an additional waterproof layer or inner container to protect the PCB?
Thanks again for your input!
We will thoroughly examine the robustness and suitability of the wood. After all, happy customers are our top priority. Yes, the PCB will be protected against water.
Btw.: Sorry for hijacking your thread a bit, as it is not a final product yet. Right now you still have the chance to shape the final product to your liking with your contributions until it becomes available. If you prefer, we also have a contact form on our site. We love to hear your thoughts.
Recommend that you also start a new separate dedicated thread under the hardware segment for community forum discussion. There you can ask for feedback and suggestions.
PS: Another suggestion could be to start a crowdfounding campaign on a site like Crowd Supply or similar.
Did anyone try these in the end?
Everybody talked extensively about the GIEX ones but I don’t see anything about those. (the fact that they don’t seem to have a clear name certainly doesn’t help)
Hi everyone!
Giex seems to have disappeared from AliExpress, and I can see equivalent no name products sold as “clearance sale”.
So far only one of my sensors have failed (older version), but it is not a good news.
I bought one in the end, but it’s not reading any moisture data through ZHA… So I cannot tell if they are any good.
BTW, some vendors list it as model “THE01860” and they are identified as TS0222 by _TZ3000_kky16aay zigbee devices.
I also bought a GiEx one ( TS0601 by _TZE204_myd45weu with black logo on top) , but moisture percentage is strangely very high and seems stuck at that level ever since I put it in soil.
I did get 5 GieX’es from AliE but, as others reported, my readings are high as well. The measurements between them, when used in the same environment are between 84-94%. When the soil was almost too dry for the plants (as the leaves were starting the show signs of lack of watering), the lowest value reported by one of them was 72%, the others were around 80%. The sensors seem to be the latest batch (with black logo). I might try to get a Tuya hub to see if there’s any difference or perhaps a firmware upated, but I think that the best option at the moment in order to have as reliable readings as possible is DYI’ing a capacitive based sensore as explained at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGP38bz-K48.
From pictures it is a capacitive soil moisture sensor using TLC555 which I read is suppose to be good.
I have not bought it yet so not tested but the description sounds promising and the design seems nice, even if it might perhaps be a little basic feature-wise and maybe a little on the large size with it using two AAA-batteries but that should also make it have a long battery life (as long as you have enough Zigbee Router devices close to it for good reception).
The silicon cover on it look to have a very ugly blue color though, but perhaps they sell it in different colours or at least covers with other colors? not sure why they did not make the whole device all in white or better yet all in black to it does not stick out if used in an indoor flowerpot?
