You can calibrate the soil sensor . I had a setting for coco dtw it went from 10% to 90% it was really cool u could watch the graph and see when the stretch is over also when they slow way down near the end . Definitely play with the numbers to customize for your needs . I have the same sensors buried in 20gal living soil containers as the ones I used last year in sm coco pots
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Thanks for the info and motivation @Waxman420
I have neglected to do much with my 2 soil sensors.
Hey, just noticed itās your first post. Welcome to the group, hope you dig the vibes and jump in the pool.
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Oh, very nice. This is more or less what I need. Hmm, too late to add this to my Christmas list?
Mycodo and Growduino are diy alternatives to look at, but I canāt be bothered learning a programming language at this point in time. This offers a good, more consumer friendly, system. I knew someone would eventually make soil probes for a WIFI controllerā¦ still remains to be seen aside from Growduino. But this is close enough for my needs. Thanks for the read!
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Tell Santa, Iām sure he will make it happen.
Now Iām curious what @SuperiorBuds has done with his probes. lol
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The soil sensors have proved to be extremely valuable to me. We are spread out a little bit, and I can watch grow 20 minutes away to know if I am gonna have to help water that day. My watering has become pretty spot on I believe. Happy plants, 0 over or under watering. I can always check right where Im at. Great system.
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Curiously, looking at it there is the 1000 and then the 1004. But unclear what the difference is other than price, and maybe a display?
But it says it uses 2.4GHz, and to turn 5GHz off for configuration. I would assume this is to avoid issues of SSID confusion? I have my bandwidths name separately. Anyone running 5GHz wlan with these? Iām going to be custom wiring it with ethernet so not really likely an issue but Iād hate to get it just to find out it wonāt work with part of my wifi on. (The good part too!)
The 1004 includes the gw1000 and one remote sensor. Bundle.
I believe the gw1000 uses only 2.4ghz wifi.
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Any of my problems aside; looks like a fantastic beginner aid, and even a useful tool to a more skilled grower.
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Note. There are three different gw1000 and sensor signal frequencies. For someone who has multiple gw1000s. Up to 3.
The sensors and gateway signals need to match.
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Wonderful! Ok, so can the control software handle all 24 channels?
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Not much, just logging every piece of data every minute to a DB and using that to trigger my automation commands. 
Each GW1000 can handle up to 8 moisture sensors and you can run up to 3 separate GW1000ās, each on a different channel, giving you up to 24 total sensors.
I will say ā their app is crap. You can view the current data and thatās basically it, and even getting to your data is a bit wonky. Not much work done on the UX of the app, itās just data shown on a screen. It gets the job done, but wasnāt something I wanted to look at daily.
Instead of using their app I have different dashboards attached to the data Iām aggregating from the sensors. Hereās a quick look at the data for the flower room in Excelā¦
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How do you import that data to excel? I only have the website on my phone. Apparently I need to get it on my computer and play with it a little.
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Computer or mobile device. The ecowitt dot net web site is the place to go for an interface. Itās where all my data is logged. Not that it replaces your need for the raw data.
The local phone app only works on the local wifi. I use it to setup devices. Also tells us when new firmware is available. So I run it once every couple weeks for that.
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Yes, @SuperiorBuds maybe you can explain a bit better for us. I know a little network, and fortunate to live with a report writer so Iām 50% of the way there, but mine hasnāt arrived yet.
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Ah yeah, I donāt send my data to them at all. I use the callback system they use to populate my own database instead.
Itās not a simple setup, it just so happened that the code I had already written for my garden worked perfectly. Someone that knows what theyāre doing can set this up in minutes thoughā¦
High level overview is I have a website that accepts data from the Ecowitt, thereās a setting in the app to allow you to set the gateway to push data to a webservice every minute. I just capture that data and store it in the DB then use my data pipeline to move the data around.
@GramTorino Posted a Github link above that has a standalone webservice you can use. This will take the data from the Ecowitt and dump it to CSV for processing. Same idea behind what Iām doing, just to flat files instead of a DB.
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Pretty cool stuff you are doing with the data.
Progress. I shoved my soil sensors into a couple pots. Now to figure out how to use and calibrate.
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I have not had to calibrate mine. They should be picked up automatically by the gatewat. Our issue has been, exactly where to place them.
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Same here. My flower room is easy since itās top feed recirculating coco I just shove the sensor in the top 4" of media and it rocks.
For veg though Iām E&F trays and with the sensor at the top it barely registers moisture. Just not enough making its way up. I am thinking I might try and shove it in the side of the pot, half way down, and see if I get better readings there.
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What are the high and low numbers for the soil sensors?
So far I see mine maxxing out around 60. Fiber 1gal coco.
Iāve seen as low as zero (when removed from soil and actually dry) all the way up to 80-85% when the top-feed is watering.
For the veg tent (E&F coco pots) I typically see 22% right before lights on. They get watered and itāll go up to 45-50% at most for me in those pots, even with the plants being very heavy and fully watered. I think Iām just measuring too close to the edge of the coco which dries out very quickly.
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