---
layout: page
title: "Plant monitor"
description: "Instructions on how to setup plant monitoring with Home Assistant."
date: 2016-05-7 23:00
sidebar: true
comments: false
sharing: true
footer: true
logo: home-assistant.png
ha_category: Environment
ha_release: 0.44
ha_qa_scale: internal
---

This`plant`component lets you merge moisture, conductivity, light intensity, temperature and battery level for a plant into a single UI element. It also supports setting minimum and maximum values for each measurement and will change its state to "problem" if it is not within those limits.

## {% linkable_title Configuration %}

To use your `plant` sensor in your installation, add the following to your `configuration.yaml` file:

```yaml
# Example configuration.yaml entry
plant:
  name_of_your_plant:
    sensors:
      moisture: sensor.my_sensor_moisture
      battery: sensor.my_sensor_battery
      temperature: sensor.my_sensor_temperature
      conductivity: sensor.my_sensor_conductivity
      brightness: sensor.my_sensor_brightness
    min_moisture: 20
```

Configuration variables:

- **entity_id** (*Required*): Set by you and is used by the component as the `entity_id`.
  - **sensors** (*Required*): 
    - **moisture** (*Optional*): Moisture of the plant. Measured in %. Can have a min and max value set optionally.
    - **battery** (*Optional*): Battery level of the plant sensor. Measured in %. Can only have a min level set optionally.
    - **temperature:** (*Optional*): Temperature of the plant. Measured in degrees Celsius. Can have a min and max value set optionally.
    - **conductivity:** (*Optional*): Conductivity of the plant. Measured in µS/cm. Can have a min and max value set optionally.
    - **brightness:** (*Optional*): Light exposure of the plant. Measured in Lux. Can have a min and max value set optionally.
  - **min_moisture** (*Optional*): Minimum moisture level before triggering a problem. Typical value: 20
  - **max_moisture** (*Optional*): Maximum moisture level before triggering a problem. Typical value: 60
  - **min_battery** (*Optional*): Minimum battery level before triggering a problem. Typical value: 20
  - **min_conductivity** (*Optional*): Minimum conductivity level before triggering a problem. Typical value: 500
  - **max_conductivity** (*Optional*): Maximum conductivity level before triggering a problem. Typical value: 3000
  - **min_temperature** (*Optional*): Minimum temperature before triggering a problem.
  - **max_temperature** (*Optional*): Maximum temperature before triggering a problem.
  - **min_brightness** (*Optional*): Minimum brightness before triggering a problem. In contrast to the other values, this check is *not* looking at the current situation, but rather at the last days. A problem is only reported if the maximum brightness over the last days was lower than min_brightness. You can use this to check if the plant gets enough light during the course of the day.
  - **max_brightness** (*Optional*): Maximum brightness before triggering a problem.
  - **check_days** (*Optional*): time interval (in days) used when checking **min_brightness**, if not set, the default value is 3

## {% linkable_title Examples %}
### Using plain MQTT sensor to get the data
This is a practical example that uses a multiple of `MQTT sensors` to supply the readings used by the `plant` sensor.
Another good source of this data would be the [Mi Flora](/components/sensor.miflora/) component. 


If the sensor data is within the min/max values the status will be `ok`, if not the status will be `problem`. You can use this to trigger a notification, if there is a problem with your plant. Of course you can only monitor attributes of your plant, where the sensor is configured and is providing the data.

## Data Source

The main sources of the data will usually be a [MiFlora sensor](/components/sensor.miflora/) or a [MQTT sensor](/components/sensor.mqtt/) receiving the data from a [PlantGateway](https://github.com/ChristianKuehnel/plantgateway).

If you want to get the date via a PlantGateway, this is a typical configuration for the MQTT sensors:

{% raw %}
```yaml
# Example configuration.yaml entry
plant:
  simulated_plant:
    sensors:
      moisture: sensor.mqtt_plant_moisture
      battery: sensor.mqtt_plant_battery
      temperature: sensor.mqtt_plant_temperature
      conductivity: sensor.mqtt_plant_conductivity
      brightness: sensor.mqtt_plant_brightness
    min_moisture: 20
    max_moisture: 60
    min_battery: 17
    min_conductivity: 500
    min_temperature: 15
    
sensor:
  - platform: mqtt
    name: my_plant_moisture
    state_topic: my_plant_topic
    value_template: '{{ value_json.moisture }}'
  - platform: mqtt
    name: my_plant_battery
    state_topic: my_plant_topic
    value_template: '{{ value_json.battery }}'
  - platform: mqtt
    name: my_plant_temperature
    state_topic: my_plant_topic
    value_template: '{{ value_json.temperature }}'
  - platform: mqtt
    name: my_plant_conductivity
    state_topic: my_plant_topic
    value_template: '{{ value_json.conductivity }}'
  - platform: mqtt
    name: my_plant_brightness
    state_topic: my_plant_topic
    value_template: '{{ value_json.brightness }}'
```
{% endraw %}

You have to replace the `state_topic` with the value that you configured in the PlantGateway. It also depends on the global configuration of your MQTT server.