Why the Adafruit version?

«««< HEAD I have had a hard time with the general Capacitive Soil Moisture sensors that you find readily on the Internet as described in this article about soil moisture sensors. In a nutshell, the ones I bought had the wrong timer chip in them, not that was a total show stopper but I also had problems getting them to work with the esp32 ADC (Analog Digical Converter).

After spending way too much time trying to get them to work, I decided to just go with a much more reliable source: Adafruit STEMMA Soil Sensor.

What is different

Right off the bat, they visually look different than the typical ones splattered all over the Internet. Besides the obvious visual, It is green with a plant root, much cute-er than the other more commonly found sensors. It is also quite a bit smaller than previous sensors.

Because I trust them.

What is different

Besides the obvious visual, It is green with a plant root, much cute-er than the other more commonly found sensors. It is also quite a bit smaller than previous sensors.

master

I2C and Software

Technically, it also communicate via I2C which makes it more generally usable by a whole slew of other Micro-controllers which is cool but it also means we have to do a little more work reading values from the devices.

The SeeSaw Platform

SeeSaw is an i2c secondary device that operates at 3.3v but has a level shifter that can operate with 5v systems.

7 bit addressing only

• Needs pull up resistors: 2.2k to 10k is a good range.
• base i2c address is set in the firmware of the device being communicated with
• Addresses can be incremented by one by pulling one or two other specific pins low. Specifically the soil moisture sensor can change addresses by shorting a couple pads

TODO Show a picture