Zigbee irrigation system: soil moisture sensor and valve for simple lawn or drip irrigation
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ค. 2024
- I am planning to set up a simple irrigation system on our holiday home and to be able to control remotely I opted for a Zigbee module that can be controlled via Tuya Smart. I picked this valve in particular as it also measures the amount of water used. And you can irrigate based on time, or water used. Nice. Unfortunately the integration between the soil sensor and the valve is not the best, but works.
Aliexpress listing: www.aliexpress.com/item/10050...
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:43 Feature summary
6:18 Why I picked this product
9:54 Appearance, design
13:12 Tuya app features
20:24 Scene options
25:00 Solution for sensor and valve
27:28 Testing the scenes
31:48 Zigbee2MQTT
36:23 Outro - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Hi Csongor, i make it with lorawan and modbus in the front garden by me. It is match higher price but i have more fun by setup of the system, and i lean more of the system components. Your Stream a super thanks for your inspirations.
Hi! Thanks for making this video! As you say, the documentation for these devices is very limited so it's great that you share your experiments. I have the exact same setup as you and my first thought was to create two scenes: one that sets the switch to on if the humidity is less than 25% and one that sets the switch to off if the humidity is more than 75%. This would be the most straight-forward solution. But watching your video it seems like the valve can't operate in this way and you have to involve setting timers. Why would they choose to ignore the most simple on/off feature like this?
Yeah, this is usually the my critisim Chinese products. They can certainly manufacture useful and working hardware, but the software side always lacks the extra thinking. OK not always, but you see my point.
Thank you for your great review! It was really informative!
Have you managed to find a solution to find an irrigation valve that can be controlled by the moisture sensor by now?
Actually I was looking for the same solution ... I have two greenhouses, where I have a dripping system which is controlled with just basic presets, but sometimes, the moisture is too high or too low... So I would be happy to find some wifi sensors and WiFi valves, that could be controlled from an app with a preset moisture level. So the valve would open only when the moisture is to low and would stop when the moisture reaches the desired level...🙂
Yes, you can do it with the moisture sensor. I would create an automation that starts at a specific time and opens the valve for a set time. And use the soil sensor to disable the valve automation if the moisture is high and turn it on if it is low.
Lol I have been going through the exact same thought/emotional journey as you. Thanks so much for the detailed insight / review! I am consider leaving on open to use it as a flow meter... For a set of timed valves further down stream (cheaper than replacing them all.. Do you see any obvious issues?
The valve inside is a latching valve, so keeping it open all the time is fine. Probably set up a timer every hour or day to open it just in case you accidentally close it. Most of the construction is plastic, make sure your connect a flexible hose to it. I tried hooking it up with a rigid plastic pipe, and whilst wrestling with the pipe (it was mostly already berried in the ground) something cracked and now it leaks. In hindsight I should have though of this.
@@csongorvarga thanks again, very helpful to know this is a latching valve! I went down a rabbit hole last night reading about the security holes of Smart devices and how to mitigate these, with various amounts of investment in time and money... E.g. Raspberry Pi + Home Automation + Tuyalocal, vs isolating device on a separate network. What did you decide on in the end?
@@thisisnotmatthew For this application I will use Tuya and just ignore potential security issues. But for other reasons I also prefer my own server. I do most of my automation in Node-Red which is local. I started playing with Sonoff iHost which is also a local server. Similar hardware as a Raspberry PI, can also run Node-Red and at least it is pre-installed for you and takes away the headache or setting up your own Linux server.
I have followed your video as much as I can understand but when I put the sensor in water the scene does not change the time for the valve. Ideas? Also, when you switched to Zigbee2MQTT how do you set a scene from the exposed information you have? I do not know how to duplicate the scene function you setup in the Tuya app. Is there a way to use the values to automate the valve?
The Tuya and Zigbee2mqtt are to completely different systems. How are you setting this up for yourself?
I had the rainpoint system, and the sensors would only last a few weeks before malfunctioning. How are your sensors doing?
So far so good, but I have no installed them outside. I would probably need a few weeks until I get the lines in the ground, etc.
hello, how is it holding? and battery life performance?
I'm lost here, i have a sonoff GW and I'm trying to pair exactly this sensor and valve, but no luck. I was expecting that if this is zigbee it will simply work. What's the issue? Can you help me? Don't tell me i need another GW to make this work. I other words should I return the Sonoff and get back to immax or anything tuya like?
This was designed for Tuya, not for Sonoff. I did not test it with Sonoff. I noticed that even though Sonoff GW is Zigbee 3.0 compatible, Sonoff may not implement all the functions that a valve supports. So it works for motion sensors, door sensors, lights, pushbuttons, but not much else I am afraid.
Is a gateway a must if i don’t want to connect it to the irrigation system just to monitor soil conditions?
A zigbee gateway is a must. If you already have one for other device, there is no need for a dedicated one for this.
Can this be used in coco perlite for indoor irrigation?
Absolutely.
The same hardware-beginer...