thing-it-device-xiaomi-smart-plant-monitor

[thing-it-node] Device Plugin for the Xiaomi Smart Plant Monitor.

This allows you to monitor

• temperature,
• lux,
• moisture and
• fertility.

by means of thing-it-node and thing-it.com.

Installation

Hardware Setup

You only have to remove the battery strip from your Plant Monitor. It will start advertising itself via Bluetooth immediately after.

Installation of NodeJS and [thing-it-node]

First, install node.js and [thing-it-node] on your Raspberry Pi following the instructions on the [thing-it-node] Wiki.

Initialization and Start of [thing-it-node]

The [thing-it-device-xiaomi-smart-plant-monitor] Plugin is installed with [thing-it-node], hence there is no need to install it separately.

The Plugin supports Autodiscovery for connected Plant Monitor devices, hence you only have to create a directory in which you intend to run the configuration, e.g.

mkdir ~/xiaomi-smart-plant-monitor-test
cd ~/xiaomi-smart-plant-monitor-test

and invoke

tin init

and then start [thing-it-node] via

tin run

If you don't want to use Autodiscovery, you may use configurations like the sample configuration via

tin example --device xiaomi-smart-plant-monitor

In this case the concrete MAC address and device name can be obtained from the Mobile App the Manufacturer provides. Hereby, either MAC address or device name is sufficient.

If you want to pair the [thing-it-node] Gateway and its sample configuration with thing-it.com, invoke

tin pair --mesh Test

and enter your thing-it.com account and password. The pairing will allow you to configure and monitor your local Gateway from thing-it.com and use the Mobile App below to connect to the Gateway from everywhere.

Mobile UI

Install the thing-it Mobile App from the Apple Appstore or Google Play and set it up to connect to [thing-it-node] locally as described here or just connect your browser under http://localhost:3001 to check how the Mobile UI would look like.

The following screenshot shows the Node Page of the sample configuration, which just defines 3 monitors:

If you use thing-it.com, you can create dashboards like the following

Where to go from here ...

Obviously, you may set up more complex configuration, e.g. a garden irrigation solution solution with

• pH sensors,
• switches for taps, pumps, fertility feeders, shades and fans,
• cameras to monitor plants remotely,
• PIR sensors to detect animals etc.

Or, you want to distribute a set of sensors and correlate their historical data with wheather data and other things on thing-it.com.

You may also be interested in

• Configuring additional Devices, Groups, Services, Event Processing, [Storyboards](https://www.thing-it.com/thing-it/#/documentationPanel/mobileClient/storyboard Configuration) and Jobs via your [thing-it] Mobile App.
• Use thing-it.com to safely connect your Node Box from everywhere, manage complex configurations, store and analyze historical data and offer your configurations to others on the [thing-it] Mesh Market.
• Explore other Device Plugins like Texas Instruments Sensor Tag, Plugwise Smart Switches and many more. For a full set of Device Plugins search for thing-it-device on npm.
• Or write your own Plugins.