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 donât consider a swing between 70-80% to be an unusable product. Iâm never trying to water my plants to, say, 74% exactly. Basically, Iâve got plants that need little water (where I keep the soil drier⊠lower than 50%), âsomeâ water (where I keep it around 50%), and âa lot ofâ water, where I try to keep it well above 50%. So, noise on the level of 10% isnât a show-stopper for me.
Itâs too bad you canât adjust the reporting frequency. I understand Raulâs point about it being used for controlling irrigation controllers, where youâd 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.
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.
Thatâs 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. Itâs really a measure of either conductivity or/and capacitance between the test contacts, which then gets translated to the manufacturerâs 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.
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, Iâd 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 theyâre over-watering a certain plant or if their irrigation system should skip a watering cycle. To use your speedometer analogy, I think itâs akin to a speedometer on a childâs go-kart showing approximate results. I wouldnât think that the go-kart manufacturer is deliberately lying to me. Iâd think that both they and I understand that what Iâm buying is a toy.
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 did order 3 of these but installed only one up till now. This weekend I installed the second one and it seems to be more reliable than the other one. It started with a soil humidity of 39% and is at 35% now without any bouncing. (It did not rain since installing.)
@Giexperience Could it be that there are several batches of this sensor whereby some are deffective?
I purchased a Soil Moisture Sensor from https://spruceirrigation.com last year. Bit pricey but readings are stable and accurate. Itâs a genuine Zigbee device and joined my existing network without issue. Provides soil moisture and temperature along with battery status. Using it to adjust irrigation times.
As expected, the HHCC sensors that suggested âzigbee2mqttâ support on AliExpress look to be totally normal BLE devices (shipped with firmware 3.3.6). Couldnât seem to detect any evidence of a Zigbee signal from them, so it doesnât look like an unannounced hardware or firmware update or anything.
That said, theyâre working totally seamlessly with the Xiaomi BLE integration (including battery status - I know there were some issues with that on previous firmware) so Iâm happy enough for now!
Hi Silviu. I would like to apologize for my absence and delay in responding to your inquiry. I have investigated the issue of the large power consumption of our device, and I am pleased to inform you that we have identified and resolved the problem.
We discovered that the device was designed to feed back data to the cloud when the value changes, with a feedback threshold of ±5%. However, a flaw in the calculation formula caused the data to become unusually sensitive when humidity levels exceeded 70%. Subtle resistance changes then exceeded 10%, leading to frequent data feedback to the cloud and resulting in high power consumption.
Fortunately, we have fixed this flaw and produced a new batch of devices. If you are interested, I would be happy to provide you with a repaired sample free of charge. Please contact me via email at [email protected], and I will arrange for a sample to be sent to you promptly.
Once again, I apologize for any inconvenience caused and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Hi brechtvhb.I apologize for any inconvenience caused. After conducting further investigations, we have discovered that the deviceâs behavior is affected by different soil types rather than the batches. Our laboratory tests have shown that the moisture content of soils usually ranges between 10% and 60%. However, when we tested some new and nutrient-rich fluffy soils we purchased, we found moisture figures that reached up to 80% when dry.
Unfortunately, our equipment becomes unstable when the humidity level goes beyond 70%, due to a flaw in the calculation formula. This flaw causes a difference in performance between devices. However, our engineers have addressed the issue by fixing the flaw, and we have produced a new batch of equipment. If you would like, I can send you a new unit for testing.
We understand that gardening can be challenging, and we appreciate any advice you can offer. Our engineers are working to solve the problem of the device behaving differently in different soils. However, due to the deviceâs battery-powered nature and low power requirements, this problem may take some time to solve.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.
Hi jemenake. I apologize for not responding to your message in a timely manner. I was occupied with work, but Iâm here now to address your concerns.
You are correct in saying that the threshold for changes in feedback data is set at 5%. We have investigated the issue of excessive power consumption resulting from the frequent feedback of the device to the cloud, and we have discovered that our calculation formula was flawed. Specifically, changes in data become sensitive at humidity levels greater than 70%, resulting in small changes in humidity above 70% leading to a change in data greater than 5%. This flaw was responsible for the constant feedback data and excessive power consumption. We have rectified this issue, and a new batch of samples has been produced. If you would like, I can send you a new sample for testing purposes. Please contact me at [email protected].
Moreover, we have found that the data of the equipment differs across different types of soils. Different soils exhibit different moisture zones. Our laboratory clay has a moisture range of 10-40%, while my new clay has a humidity range of 60-100%. The humidity range of the pots I have at home is between 20-60%.
These are the issues we have discovered with the equipment so far, and we are working to resolve them. However, we have yet to find a solution as the device requires low power consumption, which poses a significant challenge. We need more time to tackle this issue.
Please let me know if you have any other problems or suggestions. Thank you for your cooperation.
I just got a couple of the Spruce ones, and I think theyâre awful. I live on the central California coast. You may have heard about all of the rain and flooding here, recently. Three days of constant rain, completely saturated ground, and both sensors barely managed to get up to 9% âhumidityâ. It has been a day without rain and the sensors are now down to 5% and 6%.
If you canât even get to 10% when theyâre practically submerged, then maybe they shouldnât be using percent, as that implies a 0-100 scale.
