https://rustyeddy.com/categories/electronic-components/Recent content in Electronic-Components on Rusty EddyHugoen-usSun, 31 May 2026 09:53:36 -0700https://rustyeddy.com/notes/soil-moisture-adafruit/Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://rustyeddy.com/notes/soil-moisture-adafruit/<h1 id="adafruit-soil-moisture-sensor-notes-for-iot-projects">Adafruit Soil Moisture Sensor Notes for IoT Projects</h1> <p>Notes on using the Adafruit STEMMA soil moisture sensor after unreliable results from cheap capacitive sensors in an ESP32 garden project.</p> <p><a href="https://github.com/rustyeddy/iotesp">https://github.com/rustyeddy/iotesp</a></p> <p>Cheap capacitive soil moisture sensors are attractive for garden automation because they are inexpensive and easy to find. In practice, the ones I tried were inconsistent enough that they became a distraction from the larger system design — and that is the whole point of this note. When the sensor is one small part of a larger system (collection stations, an edge gateway, MQTT data flow, REST APIs, and a dashboard), a slightly more expensive sensor that behaves predictably is cheaper than spending days debugging noisy readings.</p>https://rustyeddy.com/notes/soil-moisture-sensor/Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://rustyeddy.com/notes/soil-moisture-sensor/Practical notes on soil moisture sensor reliability, calibration, protection, and sensor choice for a self-watering garden project.