To optimise and automate the watering of potted plants or the garden by avoiding excess or lack of water and, at the same time, to take care of the quality and health of the lawn and the nutrition of these plants, a device that can be of great use and which has just come onto the market is a Zigbee Neo NAS-STH02B2 soil humidity and temperature sensor.
Why is the Neo NAS-STH02B2 priced like this?
The NAS-STH02B2 Zigbee sensor incorporates Zigbee home automation technology, measures the temperature, humidity and EC of the soil and also works with a solar panel.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Neo NAS-STH02B2
Advantages
- Zigbeetechnology: By communicating with Zigbee technology, you can have a ground quality monitoring from your phone (thanks to a compatible Zigbee hub) and you can enjoy signal repeating from other Zigbee devices to have sufficient communication range.
- Tuya and Zigbee2MQTT compatible: This Neo NAS-STH02B2 sensor is compatible with the Tuya ecosystem and also with Zigbee2MQTT that you can use with Home Assistant or Jeedom.
- Solar panel: Unlike other devices on the market, this Zigbee floor sensor integrates a solar panel so you don’t need battery maintenance.
- It measures different information: In addition to temperature and humidity, this sensor also measures electrical conductivity (EC) and fertility, being interesting information to control soil quality.
Disadvantages
- You need a Zigbee hub: To use the Zigbee Neo soil sensor, you need a compatible Zigbee hub.
Neo NAS-STH02B2 User Tutorial
Today we are going to discover the details of this device which I find very interesting.
General features Neo NAS-STH02B2
If we open the packaging, we find this NAS-STH02B2 sensor in grey and violet.
With dimensions of 86 mm x 86 mm x 146 mm and a weight without batteries of 120 grams.
It has an IP66 protection rating, so it can be used outdoors with an operating temperature of -10 to 60 ℃ and an operating humidity of 0 to 100 % RH.
This sensor measures different earth information:
- Temperature with a temperature detection accuracy of 0.3 ℃.
- Humidity with a detection accuracy of 5 % RH.
- Electrical conductivity, which corresponds to the capacity of the soil to conduct electricity, i.e. the amount of soluble salts available in the soil water.
- Fertility, which is a calculation derived from the measurement of electrical conductivity, indicating an availability of essential nutrients N, P, K, i.e. Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium.
Usually for lawns:
- If the temperature is too high, it can dry out, grow slowly and turn yellow. If the temperature is too low, it can slow down its growth.
- With regard to humidity, if the level is too high due to excessive watering, it can cause diseases such as fungus, and if it is insufficient, it can dry out and have weak roots.
- If the electrical conductivity is too high, with excessive fertiliser, it can burn the roots and hinder water absorption, and if it is too low, it can stunt the growth of the grass, make it turn yellow or look weak.
- Fertility is linked to the electrical conductivity and allows to know if there is over-fertilisation or, on the contrary, if it needs more essential nutrients.
Regarding potted plants, as a rule:
- If the temperature is too high, it can weaken or burn the leaves and stress the roots. If the temperature is too low, it can stop growth and increase sensitivity.
- In terms of humidity, if the level is too high, it can cause root rot and mildew, and if the level is too low, it causes dehydration and leaf drop.
- With regard to electrical conductivity, too high a level due to over-watering with fertilisers can burn the roots, and too low a level corresponds to a lack of nutrients and depleted soil.
- This fertility level linked to the electrical conductivity, if too high, can be toxic, and if too low causes poor development and yellowing leaves.
Having this information is key to taking action at the right time.
And speaking of this information, this sensor transmits its measurements wirelessly thanks to Zigbee technology.
It is an excellent idea to unify your smart home and not saturate your WiFi network, as well as enjoying interesting functions such as signal repetition thanks to different Zigbee devices that you have at home and that are connected to the current, such as Zigbee plugs, Zigbee light bulbs.
Or USB Zigbee dongles, which automatically improve the range of Zigbee communications.
Therefore, you can have sufficient range in your garden with your Neo NAS-STH02B2 sensor thanks to this technology.
In addition, it is powerful to have a sensor with this technology, knowing that, in addition, a Zigbee device usually consumes less energy than the same device in WiFi.
And speaking of energy, another detail that I personally love is that this sensor, which used to exist exclusively with batteries, now has a second model that integrates a solar panel and, therefore, unlike other Zigbee sensors on the market, this model does not need battery maintenance as it can recover solar energy that recharges the 3x AA battery.
This way, you will not have to replace batteries every X months, unlike other sensors of this type that we usually find in the market.
We have plastic rubbers to protect the three stainless steel sensors.
And these sensors measure 6 cm each.
When you put these sensors in the soil, they can measure temperature, humidity, electrical conductivity and fertility.
Zigbee devices with solar panels are becoming more and more common. We have already seen a Zigbee outdoor siren with solar panel in other contents.
And a Zigbee irrigation controller with solar panel.
This Zigbee Neo sensor is compatible with the Tuya ecosystem, so you will be able to use a Silvercrest hub that you can find in Lidl shops.
Or any other Tuya hub, such as one from the Moes brand, which is the one chosen by a home user.
It is also compatible with universal home automation hubs such as Home Assistant.
Or Jeedom thanks to the Zigbee2MQTT platform.
How to link NAS-STH02B2 with a Zigbee home automation hub
Now, let’s see how to link this Zigbee Neo NAS-STH02B2 Zigbee sensor with a Zigbee home automation hub.
How to link NAS-STH02B2 with Smart Life
If you use a Tuya hub, from the Smart Life application, you must click on add a new device. At this point, you will be able to include your sensor.
To do this, simply press the sensor button for 6 seconds until the LED starts flashing.
You’re done! Your Neo Zigbee sensor should now appear in the Smart Life interface.
How to link NAS-STH02B2 with Zigbee2Mqtt
In Zigbee2MQTT, which you can use with Home Assistant or Jeedom, the process is similar: you have to launch the opt-in mode.
And press the sensor button for 6 seconds until the LED starts flashing.
You should see your Zigbee Neo sensor in the interface of your home automation hub.
How to install the Neo floor sensor
Now that you have your Zigbee floor sensor included in your home automation hub, you will be able to install it.
The first thing to do is to remove the protective rubber bands from the steel sensors of the device.
The manufacturer indicates that they should be planted completely in the soil, so you should follow these instructions and place it in the strategic area where you want to monitor the soil measurements.
If you have different areas to monitor, you can use several sensors of this type.
Detailed features of Neo NAS-STH02B2
Now let’s discover all the functions of this Zigbee Neo sensor.
How to use Neo NAS-STH02B2 with Smart Life
In Smart Life, we can see the sensor measurements in real time, i.e. electrical conductivity, humidity and temperature. We can also see the battery level in percentage. Below, we have temperature and humidity alerts.
This information will be updated every 5 minutes, but if you want to have an immediate report, you can simply press the button on the sensor and it will send its measurements at that moment.
If we click on the icon at the bottom left, we will have a history of the sensor measurements over time.
Now, if we go to the icon on the right, we have access to the sensor settings.
- We can display the temperature in °C or °F.
- We can adjust the sensitivity of the temperature measurement for more or less reporting according to our needs.
- Also, we can adjust the humidity sensitivity.
- We can define a maximum and minimum alert temperature and the same applies to humidity.
These limit values can be used to receive alerts or trigger actions, such as activating irrigation when the sensor exceeds one of these defined values.
And you can set a reporting time, being 5 minutes by default, but you can set a longer time if you don’t need such frequent reporting.
How to use Neo NAS-STH02B2 with Zigbee2MQTT
In Zigbee2MQTT, we can also see the electrical conductivity, temperature and humidity measurements in real time, and we have a fertility status that can be lower, low, normal, medium, high or higher. Then we have temperature and humidity sensitivity settings.
We can also receive temperature and humidity alarms, being able to configure critical alert values. We can see the battery level in percentage. Finally, an interesting information is the quality of the link, to know if we have good or bad communication.
If it is bad, we can easily add Zigbee signal repeaters.
As the level of fertility, electrical conductivity and humidity was low, I took the opportunity to apply fertiliser.
And also watering my plant.
And as we can see, these levels increased after these actions.
Under settings, we can calibrate the measured temperature and humidity, and we can also modify the accuracy of these temperature and humidity measurements.
Of course, the magic of a smart home is being able to make different devices interact together. For example, you can set up that every day, if it doesn’t rain and the soil moisture is below a level that you have defined, then your irrigation controller is activated and waters your garden.
Conversely, if the measured humidity is higher than a defined level, it is not irrigated at that time.
In the user’s case, he has a Zigbee irrigation controller with solar panel that can also define a percentage of irrigation opening.
This means that you can automatically irrigate at the right rate.
In short, having a Zigbee sensor of this type allows constant monitoring of our lawn or plants to detect problems quickly, automate irrigation by taking care of this lawn or plants and, at the same time, save water.
