Spruce Zigbee Soil Moisture Sensors - driver needed?

bf1 · January 1, 2019, 8:16am

Will these Zigbee soil moisture sensors work with something generic or will a driver need to be written? I understand they work with Smartthings...

https://spruceirrigation.com/order/

justin.ewing · February 2, 2019, 11:06pm

I have one and was able to connect it. I set it as device= "Generic Zigbee Moisture Sensor". It is not reporting any moisture. Anyone else have any success?

bertabcd1234 · July 8, 2019, 3:32pm

I just got one of these (3rd gen Spruce snsor) and it was a pain to pair (doesn't seem to pair to channels higher than 20 and the LEDs never seemed to do the exact pattern mentioned in the manual), but I finally got it to pair and reliably report. I probably wouldn't use Generic Zigbee Moisture sensor for this since that driver is intended for binary "wet/dry" sensors like water leak sensors. The native driver I had the best luck with was "Generic Zigbee Motion/Humidity" sensor. This was intended for the Iris v3 motion sensor that reports motion, temperature (which you'd still get from the moisture sensor), and humidity. Obviously the motion part goes unused, but I figured this would get me the closest I could with a native driver. So far, it does appear to be more or less working to some extent: it reliably reports temperature, and it reports...something for humidity (though extremely low values like 1.3% when in regular air; I haven't tried putting it in soil or water to see what it would read then).

There is a public ST DTH available: SmartThingsPublic/spruce-sensor.groovy at master · SmartThingsCommunity/SmartThingsPublic · GitHub. It looks like it just reports temperature and humidity, too, and it probably doesn't do much fancy calculation with the humidity (just seems to round the raw value, though I can't see what that actually is...presumably what the generic driver reports, too). Someone in this thread claims to be using a custom driver from Mike or ihiyardi for the v1 sensor (probably not too different?), but I can't find that anywhere publicly and the poster never responded to someone who asked about it.

In any case, we'll see how it goes once I put it outside, I guess.

dan.t · July 8, 2019, 3:43pm

I migrated the public ST driver to use the HE nomenclature, there are some raw zigbee commands in there that had to be changed from "st.... " to "he....."

You can find that driver here:

github.com

danTapps/Hubitat/blob/master/Drivers/Spruce Sensor/Spruce Sensor.groovy

/**
 *  Spruce Sensor -updated with SLP3 model number 3/2019
 *
 *  Copyright 2014 Plaid Systems
 *
 *  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except
 *  in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at:
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed
 *  on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License
 *  for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
 *
 -------10/20/2015 Updates--------
 -Fix/add battery reporting interval to update
 -remove polling and/or refresh
 
 -------5/2017 Updates--------
 -Add fingerprints for SLP

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I have to say, I am not overly impressed with the device. The temperature is always the same as the environment and the humidity readings don't seem to be to accurate, as in: Put in in a glass full of water and get 68% humidity.....

an39511 · July 8, 2019, 4:25pm

I posted in the other thread mentioning I got my Spruce version one working with this device driver. Its been working for over a month and properly reports temperature and humidity. If you still have an issue with the driver you are using perhaps this one will work for you. Again it was tested on the first generation Spruce.

github.com

hubitat/HubitatPublic/blob/master/examples/drivers/environmentSensor.groovy

/*
	Environment Sensor

	2018-08-09 maxwell
		-cleaned up parsing and eventing
*/

import groovy.transform.Field

@Field Map diagAttributes = [
    	"0000":["name":"ResetCount","val":0x0000],
    	"0104":["name":"TXRetrys","val":0x0104],
    	"0105":["name":"TXFails","val":0x0105],
    	"011A":["name":"PacketDrops","val":0x011A],
    	"0115":["name":"DecryptFailures","val":0x0115],
    	"011D":["name":"RSSI","val":0x011D],
    	"011E":["name":"Parent","val":0x011E],
    	"011F":["name":"Children","val":0x011F],
    	"0120":["name":"Neighbors","val":0x0120]
    ]

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cuboy29 · July 8, 2019, 4:27pm

I am not able to get the Gen1 version of the sensor to pair with HE. What's the secret to getting them to pair? I tried a fresh battery and holding the button until the LED comes on to reset it but still no luck.

bertabcd1234 · July 8, 2019, 4:45pm

Oh, interesting! Didn't know it was just the "Enivornment Sensor" driver. I have the actual Enviornment Sensor device by ihiyardi, so already had this installed. Like the Zigbee motion/humidity driver, I this one also looks like it has unnecessary capabilities implemented (I think the Spruce only does temperature and humidity), but that shouldn't cause problems as long as you don't expect them to magically appear (or use them in automations the device may be select-able for despite this). I'll both this, the ported driver above (thanks!), and see how it compares to the motion/humidity driver.

I just bought a gen 3, new, so I don't really know how the original works. In my case, I was more or less able to follow the instructions, except I had to try several times, and I'd be curious of you're on a relatively high Zigbee channel. I was using 21 and mine didn't seem to pair until I changed to 20 (or maybe that was when I had finally tried enough times?).

dan.t · July 8, 2019, 4:47pm

I am on channel 20 and it joined right away. I actually reset it a couple of times and it always joined on first try. But I am also right next to an Xbee repeater...

dan.t · July 8, 2019, 6:06pm

It's not the driver that I have an issue with. It is the measurements provided by the device. Given what I have seen, I don't trust them....

an39511 · July 8, 2019, 9:06pm

As I remember I had difficulty pairing too. First make sure to factory reset the device. I think when I paired it, Hubitat found the device but hung looking for a driver to assign. When I clicked cancel it assigned "Device" for the driver. I then changed if from device to Environment Sensor and saved it. After that I clicked on configure and it was working as expected.

Edit: Also make sure you don't have any other hub turned on. For some reason I had more difficulty pairing zigbee devices when my SmartThings Hub was turned on, even when it wasn't in pairing mode. I have no idea why or if it was some other coincidence causing pairing issues. I remember doing a lot of fiddling.

cuboy29 · July 13, 2019, 9:51pm

I couldn't get it to pair with my hub on zigbee ch 12. I changed it to 20 and it paired fine as device.

Now to get a working driver for it.

Thanks,

joel_dj · August 10, 2019, 8:03pm

So if you paid the sensor to hubitat, how are you sending the info to spruce?

cuboy29 · August 10, 2019, 8:22pm

I am assuming you meant pair. I am not using the sprinkler controller from Spruce. I am only using moisture sensors to get the lawn moisture just for display. Both my sensors seems to stopped reporting in yesterday. Not sure why yet.

joel_dj · August 12, 2019, 8:01pm

sorry yeah pair. I got the latest gen3 sensors they are very good. But I use spruce as well. I really hope they support HE soon. It's on their radar but not sure when / if they'll do it

TechMedX · January 18, 2020, 11:58pm

Any update on these? One of my last few sensors in ST

spokra · January 20, 2020, 6:38pm

the only problem i had with the spruce sensor was i had to change channels to something below 20

TechMedX · January 20, 2020, 7:47pm

I had to change my zigbee to 20 to make my Schleage locks work (well join anyway). I wonder if it will mess that up if a go back down.

an39511 · January 21, 2020, 1:22am

I have been running the fist generation Spruce without any problems
Zigbee channel = 20
Device Driver = Environment Sensor
From iharyadi

jared.zimmerman · May 13, 2020, 10:17pm

These seem really interesting, but can't imagine paying $59 per sensor, as much as I'd love to have them in my system for a few key (fancy) house plants. we picked up a bunch of these from Ikea CHILIPULVER Plant watering sensor, green - IKEA they have 3 settings depending on the watering needs of your plan and flash a VERY BRIGHT blue LED when they need water. No connected, but also only $4.99

TechMedX · May 13, 2020, 10:22pm

@jared.zimmerman They are better suited in the lawn not plants. Not sure that $4.99 job would fair too well against the zero turn