Soil Moisture Sensor

I was just wondering if anyone has run across a soil moisture sensor that would work with Hubitat?

There is one that connects to the EcoWitt Gateway devices, which I am now the custodian of.

To add a bit more weight to the selection of EcoWitt... Apart from my involvement :wink: The SM sensors connect to an EcoWitt Gateway device via RF which in turn sends sensor readings to an HE hub locally via HTTP. There are options to view the data remotely via the EcoWitt website, but in terms of automation, all the communication required is local.

The SM sensors are powered via single AA battery. While I have 4-5 myself, I can't claim to have needed to use them much in recent times here (heap of rain in recent years).

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Thank you very much for the information. These products could add another level of entertainment for me.

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To be honest I haven't seen too many other options out there, not that I've looked extensively, but at least in the commentary I have seen here on the Community, I can't remember too many alternatives people have raised. I hope there are.... it is always good to have options.

Do you have a particular use for the sensors? Are you wanting to use them for pot plants indoors? Or outdoor planter boxes? Or something else?

Actually I have what I will call a geek friend (brilliant) to whom I want to introduce Hubitat. I was just looking for a sensor which lines up with one of his interests. We will have to wait and see if the Hubitat seed germinates for him. :slight_smile: He is very proficient with Raspberry Pi for numerous projects though I believe for quick & simple automations that Hubitat provides a good path.

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Then I expect EcoWitt will likely suit a variety of options, including integrating with Hubitat.

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I use those Ecowitt soil moisture sensors to keep track of House plants in hard-to-reach places and potted plants on the back porch. last year I drowned a couple plants because both me and my wife kept watering them. Now it's just when needed, and yes. the variety of Ecowitt sensor is a whole new rabbit hole to go down!!

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I use this zigbee soil moisture sensor. It's been reliable so far (2 years outside).
Amazon.com : Plaid Systems Spruce Irrigation Soil Moisture Sensor Gen 3, Compatible with SmartThings, Hubitat : Patio, Lawn & Garden

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This is an alternative Chinese-designed soil moisture sensor, currently priced at about 26 Euro :

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I ended up buying one, now just waiting for a driver haha

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Ignore the '... with display and a clock' part of the driver name : )

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Installing now, thanks!

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How did you go with the driver, is it working as you expected?

Yup! Working as expected

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@user3432

Any updates on the reliability and accuracy of this Tuya Soil Moisture Meter?

Thanks

I came across this posting in Home Assistant forum :

Shortly, there are still some issues with this device that the manufacturer is trying to fix.

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Thanks for that...
I was JUST about to get back to pursuing this
....and knowing there's still some issues will save some hassle getting it and being disappointed for sure.

I assume this was you posting below...and actually that's a great idea and gives me another idea...I if @mike.maxwell could come up with a way to have the Generic Driver on soil moisture meters have customizable offsets. It might already, I don't have such a sensor yet so I don't know.

Maybe the relationship is not linear...but if it were, I could see sticking these in different soils and TEACHING the driver how to interpret what the device is reading/giving to HE (just like is done with temperature sensors).

E.G. I might say ....in this pot, this bed, this field...if the device reads X then add (or subtract) 15 as the interpreted value. I guess this could be similarly achieved in your application where you don't consider "Soil A" damp until it reaches x% and "Soil B" damp until y%.

""
kkossev

(Zigbee flower and plant sensors for soil moisture + light + temperature + humidity? - #212 by kkossev - Hardware - Home Assistant Community)

@Giex if you are a representative of the company that engineered this sensor, please consider the above request in a future firmware update.

Every use case is different, so the ideal solution would be to be able to configure the reporting period by the Zigbee coordinator side. There are not so much Tuya-based devices that allow such reporting period configurations, and it would be great if you could add configuration commands in this TS0601 _TZE200_myd45weu device.
""

Principally, the device drivers must be kept as simple as possible, although sometimes I break this rule... In this particular case, all that is needed is the soil moisture sensor to accept T/H reporting intervals and threshold configuration commands.

More sophisticated processing of the sensor's raw data can be done in an App. Here, depending on the soil type, plant type, etc.. a compensation or a correction of the raw T/H values can be made.

But in this case, it is definitely a firmware problem of a Tuya device, that must be fixed by the manufacturer.

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