Hey everyone, welcome back!
This time, I’m going to show you how to monitor your plants in Home Assistant. By combining a few clever components, you can create a great overview of your plants’ condition — and even get notifications when, for example, they need water.
Let’s jump right in!
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Now, in my house, almost everything is already automated. But there are always those little projects you keep thinking, “I should really try that someday.” I’ll admit, plant monitoring might not be the first thing you’d want to automate in your smart home, but it’s really fun to see how your plants are doing and to get alerts when they need a little attention.
There’s a great website called OpenPlantbook that has tons of information about all kinds of plants. That means you can automatically pull in the right parameters for each plant in your home.
🌿 What do we need?
To monitor our plants, we’ll need a few things.
First, you’ll need a plant sensor. I’m using these Zigbee plant sensors—they measure soil moisture, humidity, and temperature, and include a light sensor.
Some models also measure conductivity, but those are usually a bit more expensive. I used to have sensors without a light sensor, but I definitely recommend getting ones with a light sensor so you can also check if your plants are getting enough light where they are.
I’ve connected mine to Home Assistant using Zigbee2MQTT, but they should also work with ZHA. If you’ve managed to connect them with ZHA, let me know in the comments!
You can find these sensors on AliExpress, and I’ve included links in the video description.
Besides the hardware, we’ll also use a few integrations and a dashboard card.
First, make sure HACS is installed. If you haven’t done that yet, check out my other video where I explain how to do it. There’s a link in the description.
Once HACS is installed, you’ll need to add a few things:
- First, you need the OpenPlantbook Integration
- Add the OpenPlantbook URL as a custom repository in HACS.
- Then install the integration.
- You’ll find the URL in the description of the video:
👉 https://github.com/Olen/home-assistant-openplantbook
- Then, install the Plant Monitor Integration
- This works the same as installing the OpenPlantbook integration: add it as a custom repository first, then install it.
- You’ll find the URL in the description of the video:
👉 https://github.com/Olen/homeassistant-plant/
- And finally, install the Flower Card
- Again, add the repository to HACS, then install the card.
- You’ll find the URLs of all the repositories in the description of the video:
👉 https://github.com/Olen/lovelace-flower-card
🪴 Displaying your plants
Once everything’s installed, we can finally show our plants on the dashboard!
First, we need to install OpenPlantbook in Home Assistant itself. For that, get an API key at the OpenPlantbook website. Then install OpenPlantbook in Home Assistant and enter your API credentials.
Of course, you first need to add your plant sensor to Zigbee2MQTT or ZHA so that Home Assistant can see it.
When your sensor shows up in Home Assistant, add your plant to the Plant Monitor integration.
You can give your plant a name, choose the species (so OpenPlantbook can identify it), and then select all the sensor entities your device provides.
In my case, I can select everything except conductivity, because my sensor doesn’t measure that.
If your plant is found in OpenPlantbook, all the ideal growing conditions are automatically imported, which is super convenient!
It might take a few minutes for the data to become visible in Home Assistant, so be patient.
The Plant Monitor integration can also detect when something’s wrong, for example, if your plant doesn’t get enough light or water.
You can set this up by adjusting the device options and choosing which sensors should trigger alerts.
Now that your plant has been added, let’s add it to your dashboard.
Open one of your dashboards, add a new card, and choose the Flower Card.
If you don’t see it yet, try clearing your browser cache or restarting Home Assistant.
Select your just-integrated plant in the Flower Card and choose which data you want to display.
You can also link a battery sensor for the plant sensor’s battery level.
My sensors don’t report exact percentages. They just show low, middle, or high.
So, I created a Template Sensor Helper that converts those values into percentages (19, 39, and 40).
If your Zigbee sensor does show actual percentages, let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear about it!
And that’s it!
From now on, you can see your plants right on your dashboard.
You can even create an automation that triggers when soil moisture drops below a set level and sends you a message. I’ve got another tutorial that shows how to do that.
Thanks so much for watching!
I hope this tutorial was helpful. Let me know in the comments if you try it out.
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See you soon in my next video!
Bye Bye🌱
Aliexpress link: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c3gDabT9
Keywords:
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