---
layout: page
title: "Mi Flora plant sensor"
description: "Instructions on how to integrate MiFlora BLE plant sensor with Home Assistant."
date: 2016-09-19 12:00
sidebar: true
comments: false
sharing: true
footer: true
logo: miflora.png
ha_category: DIY
ha_release: 0.29
ha_iot_class: "Local Polling"
---

The `miflora` sensor platform allows one to monitor to plants. The [Mi Flora plant sensor](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Newest-Original-Xiaomi-Flora-Monitor-Digital-Plants-Flowers-Soil-Water-Light-Tester-Sensor-Monitor-for-Aquarium/32685750372.html) is a small Bluetooth Low Energy device that monitors not only the moisture, but also light, temperature and conductivity. As only a single BLE device can be polled at the same time, the library implements locking to make sure this is the case.

Start a scan to determine the MAC addresses of the sensor:

```bash
$ sudo hcitool lescan
LE Scan ...
F8:04:33:AF:AB:A2 [TV] UE48JU6580
C4:D3:8C:12:4C:57 Flower mate
[...]
```

Check for `Flower care` or `Flower mate` entries, those are your sensor.

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

```yaml
# Example configuration.yaml entry
sensor:
  - platform: miflora
    mac: 'xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx'
    monitored_conditions:
      - temperature
```

- **mac** (*Required*): The MAC address of your sensor.
- **monitored_conditions** array (*Optional*): The paramaters that should be monitored (defaults to monitoring all parameters).
  - **moisture**: Moisture in the soil.
  - **light**: Brightness at the sensor's location.
  - **temperature**: Temperature at the sensor's location.
  - **conductivity**: Conductivity in the soil.
  - **battery**: Battery details.
- **name** (*Optional*): The name displayed in the frontend.
- **force_update** (*Optional*): Sends update events even if the value hasn't changed.
- **median** (*Optional*): Sometimes the sensor measurements show spikes. Using this parameter, the poller will report the median of the last 3 (you can also use larger values) measurements. This filters out single spikes. Median: 5 will also filter double spikes. If you never have problems with spikes, `median: 1` will work fine. 
- **timeout** (*Optional*): Define the timeout value in seconds when polling (defaults to 10 if not defined)
- **retries** (*Optional*): Define the number of retries when polling (defaults to 2 if not defined)
- **cache_value** (*Optional*): Define cache expiration value in seconds (defaults to 1200 if not defined)
- **adapter** (*Optional*): Define the bluetooth adapter to use (defaults to hci0). Run `hciconfig` to get a list of available adapters.

Note that by default the sensor is only polled once every 15 minutes. This means with the `median: 3` setting will take as least 30 minutes before the sensor will report a value after a Home Assistant restart. As the values usually change very slowly, this isn't a big problem. 
Reducing polling intervals will have a negative effect on the battery life.

A full configuration example could looks the one below:

```yaml
# Example configuration.yaml entry
sensor:
  - platform: miflora
    mac: 'xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx'
    name: Flower 1
    force_update: false
    median: 3
    monitored_conditions:
      - moisture
      - light
      - temperature
      - conductivity
      - battery
```