I tried switching from Xiaomi BLE soil sensors to the Tuya TS0601_soil Zigbee soil sensors. I wanted to rely only on Zigbee devices, but these TS0601_soil sensors are crap!
After pairing, they don’t send any update/readings. A few of them report randomly every few hours, but those values are completely off.
When they’re not in the soil, they show 0%. When I put them in the soil, they show 97-100%. That can’t be right, as the soil is dry. And the value does not move from that reading.
I’ve heard about some batches of TS0601_soil draining the battery, but not about them not reporting values or giving wrong ones.
Should I just throw these away?
Also, do you know if the new TZE284_aao3yzhs are any better?
Does anyone have the _TZE284_aao3yzhs joined to the app? I got mine in today and have a working quirk but have one cluster left that I’m trying to figure out what it does. Looked at the Zigbee2MQTT version, and they didn’t handle it, so may not be anything. Figured it was worth asking.
I have been testing two of the _TZE284_aao3yzhs sensors for the last day. They seem to report in about every thirty minutes. Response to soil moisture change is rapid, see the update in less than a minute. As far as accuracy, who knows, on the counter they read 0% in a glass of water they read 100%. In dryish plants I’m seeing 4-10%, so that all seems believable.
Not tested but lilkey the same chip and also same firmware with just a different Zigbee fingerprint signature. I is in the Z2M database as Tuya white-label product model “THE01860A” with Zigbee fingerprint signature “_TZ3000_t9qqxn70”:
It looks to be supported by Zigbee2MQTT via same zigbee-herdsman converter for Tuya TS0222 as _TZE204_myd45weu (TS0601 QT-07S) and "_TZ3000_kky16aay" (and "_TZE200_ga1maeof`" )
The Z2M device page says that it exposes temperature and humidity, and I interpret this as temperature and humidity in the air and not in the soil? However, the description page on the Domadoo webpage says that it measures temperature and moisture in the soil? It’s difficult to interpret…
It’s more expensive than Giex and others clones, and looks similar to a possible new version of https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005005218556209.html
At least this one I have one, and is so far as reliable as Giex
FYI, most of those are not technically ”clones”, but instead those all basically the same hardware product under the hood (though different variants as some come with optional sensor components for humidity and lux/light-readings) as all are designed and made by Tuya who is manufacturing them as a generic ”white-label product” as both that product’s ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) and OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), and that means that those specific products were designed to be renamed and rebranded by other companies for them to sell it as their own. As such those other companies often do not touch the firmware, instead they just get a random unique Tuya model-number even though it is the same components and firmware underneath. So in theory they could eventually be making hundreds of the same product with optional features enabled however being different looking products that are really the same or similar under the hood but the only real difference is more or less the Zigbee signature fingerprint written into the firmware (which again can have different optipnal features enabled or not). See:
