2021-02-15 08:08:37 +01:00

5.5 KiB

title description ha_category ha_release ha_iot_class ha_codeowners ha_domain ha_platforms
Mi Flora Instructions on how to integrate MiFlora BLE plant sensor with Home Assistant.
Environment
0.29 Local Polling
@danielhiversen
@basnijholt
miflora
sensor

The miflora sensor platform allows one to monitor plant soil and air conditions. The Mi Flora plant sensor is a small Bluetooth Low Energy device that monitors the moisture and conductivity of the soil as well as ambient light and temperature. Since only one BLE device can be polled at a time, the library implements locking to prevent polling more than one device at a time.

There are "Chinese" and "International" versions available and there is a report that only the "International" works.

Install a Bluetooth Backend

Before configuring Home Assistant you need a Bluetooth backend and the MAC address of your sensor. Depending on your operating system, you may have to configure the proper Bluetooth backend for your system:

  • On Home Assistant: Miflora will work out of the box.
  • On Home Assistant Container: Works out of the box with --net=host and properly configured Bluetooth on the host.
  • On other Linux systems:
    • Preferred solution: Install the bluepy library (via pip). When using a virtual environment, make sure to install the library in the right one.  - Fallback solution: Install gatttool via your package manager. Depending on the distribution, the package name might be: bluez, bluetooth, bluez-deprecated

Scan for devices

Start a scan to determine the MAC addresses of the sensor (you can identify your sensor by looking for Flower care or Flower mate entries) using this command:

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

Or, if your distribution is using bluetoothctl use the following commands:

$ bluetoothctl
[bluetooth]# scan on
[NEW] Controller <your Bluetooth adapter> [default]
[NEW] F8:04:33:AF:AB:A2 [TV] UE48JU6580
[NEW] C4:D3:8C:12:4C:57 Flower mate

If you can't use hcitool or bluetoothctl but have access to an Android phone you can try BLE Scanner or similar scanner applications from the Play Store to easily find your sensor MAC address. If you are using Windows 10, try the Microsoft Bluetooth LE Explorer app from the Windows Store.

Configuration

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

# Example configuration.yaml entry
sensor:
  - platform: miflora
    mac: "xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx"
    monitored_conditions:
      - moisture

{% configuration %} mac: description: The MAC address of your sensor. required: true type: string monitored_conditions: description: The parameters that should be monitored. required: false default: [moisture, light, temperature, conductivity, battery] type: list keys: moisture: description: Moisture in the soil. light: description: Brightness at the sensor's location. temperature: description: Temperature at the sensor's location. conductivity: description: Conductivity in the soil. battery: description: Battery details. Cached and only updated once a day. name: description: The name displayed in the frontend. required: false type: string force_update: description: Sends update events even if the value hasn't changed. required: false type: boolean default: false median: description: "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." required: false type: integer adapter: description: "Define the Bluetooth adapter to use. Run hciconfig to get a list of available adapters." required: false default: hci0 type: string go_unavailable_timeout: description: "Timeout to report this device as unavailable. This option hides a bad link quality" required: false default: 7200 type: integer {% endconfiguration %}

By default the sensor is only polled once every 20 minutes (scan_interval is 1200 seconds by default). On a Home Assistant restart sensor will report initial value. If you set median: 3, it will take at least 40 minutes before the sensor will report an average value. Keep in mind though that reducing polling intervals will have a negative effect on the battery life.

Full example

A full configuration example could look like the one below:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
sensor:
  - platform: miflora
    mac: "xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx"
    name: Flower 1
    force_update: true
    median: 3
    go_unavailable_timeout: 43200
    monitored_conditions:
      - moisture
      - light
      - temperature
      - conductivity
      - battery

An automation example to report a battery failure:

- id: flower1_moisture_unavailable_check
  alias: "Flower 1 sensors available"
  trigger:
  - entity_id: sensor.flower1_moisture
    for: 24:00:00
    platform: state
    to: unavailable
  action:
  - data:
      message: "Flower 1 moisture is unavailable for more than 24 hours"
    service: notify.notifier_telegram_someone