Unfortunately, most soil moisture sensors used in our Arduino, ESP8266, or ESP32 projects destroy themselves after a short while. We need a better solution.
Today we will test different sensors, and I will show you how they work and why most sensors from China destroy themselves. And, of course, we will find a solution to the problem.

#207 Why most Arduino Soil Moisture Sensors suck (incl. solution)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udmJyncDvw0

The capacitive soil moisture sensor allows you to measure the moistness of soil. The biggest advantage over a traditional moisture sensor is that the capacitive sensor doesn’t corrode. In this tutorial I’ll explain how you can read the soil moisture sensor and what the advantages are. Further you learn how to work with the map() function and how to calculate the soil moisture in percentage.

Many ask what the difference is between v1.2 and v2.0, this is what I found:
- The spelling of the out pin: AOUT on v1.2 and AUOT on the v2.0
- The top of the PCB shows a tiny circle on v2.0

Capacitive Soil Moisture Sensors don’t work correctly + Fix for v2.0 v1.2 Arduino ESP32 Raspberry Pi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGP38bz-K48

In this episode I talk about capacitive soil moisture sensors and why 82% of them dont work correctly. I analyze the 3 most common problems they have by design and show you how to fix them or how to find sensors that work right away.

You can jump to one of these sections:
0:00 Introduction

0:39 Flaura – the smart, self-watering plant pot
1:20 Resistive sensors suck
2:03 Working principle
2:43 Learnings from 38 orders
3:47 Missing voltage regulator
5:11 Wrong timer chip
6:57 Missing resistor connection
9:39 Fixes
10:01 Ordering advices