Soil Moisture Sensor with Circuit Playground Express and MakeCode

Created by Mike Barela

Last updated on 2019-02-19 04:03:35 PM UTC

 Guide Contents

Guide Contents 2
Overview 3
Circuit Playground Express Soil Sensor Mini Kit 3
How It Works 4
Pick Your Plant 4
Build 5
Code 7
For Windows 8
Manual Calibration, All Platforms 8
Final Setup 9
Going Further 10
Assistive Technology 10

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Overview

These days, we all get busy and soon a week (or month) has gone by. Then we remember: water the plants! Run over
to the plants and the soil is like a desert and we apologize to the poor plant.

This situation can be averted through a simple project using the Adafruit Circuit Playground
Express (https://adafru.it/wpF). The amount of moisture in the soil can be measured by the board and indicators used
to show if the plant needs watering.

All you need is a nail and an alligator clip cable. Adafruit carries a kit with the materials or you can buy the pieces
separately.

Circuit Playground Express Soil Sensor Mini Kit

$0.00
OUT OF STOCK
OUT OF STOCK

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Separately:

1 x Circuit Playground Express

Circuit Playground Express Board
ADD TO CART

1 x 3 x AA Battery Holder
Battery holder with On/Off Switch and JST connector to CPX
ADD TO CART

1 x Alkaline AA Batteries
3 packaged together
ADD TO CART

1 x Small Alligator Clip Test Lead

Set of 6
ADD TO CART

1 x Nail or other piece of conductive metal

2 to 4 inches (5-10 centimeters)

A nail is a common piece of metal to use but it could be any metal that isn't too broad that can stick into the soil of the
pot with a decent depth. The metal/nail does not need to reach the bottom of the pot, only be an inch or two (2.5-5
cm) down in the soil.

How It Works
The Circuit Playground Express can detect the capacitance (the ability to store an electric charge) on an analog pin (in
our case, analog pin A1 ). As the moisture around a nail in the plant's pot increases, the value increases (we're
creating a bigger capacitor). Dry soil doesn't work as well for electricity (like most dry materials except metals) so the
value read by the Circuit Playground Express will be lower.

Pick Your Plant

This project works best on indoor plants in a pot or indoor window bed. Outdoor use would require wanterproofing
and the "water me" indication wouldn't be obvious if it was outdoors.

The plant in my example is a baby Maple tree in a smallish pot. As it grows, it'll need a bigger pot!

You will need to spend a few minutes with your chosen plant to get a good idea of when it is wet and dry to provide a
good, accurate measurement. So pick out your plant and do not water it before starting.

You might want to look on the Internet as to what type of soil moisture makes the plant flourish best. You can adjust
the moisture values in your program to "dial in" the best values for your particular plant.

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Build

Use the alligator clip wire combo to clip onto the Circuit Playground Express A1 pad. The other end should clip onto
your nail or piece of metal. The nail should be in the soil about 2 inches (5 centimeters).

For the Code portion of this build, you will want the Circuit Playground Express connected via a USB cable connected
to a computer capable of running MakeCode. The USB cable will provide the Circuit Playground Express power for this
portion of the build.

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When your code is done on the next page, unplug the Circuit Playground Express from the USB cable and plug in your
battery pack. Be sure your off/on switch on the battery pack is set to on .

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Code
This project uses Microsoft MakeCode for the code to read the soil sensor.

If you are new to Microsoft MakeCode, Adafruit has an excellent getting started tutorial
at https://learn.adafruit.com/makecode (https://adafru.it/wWd).

The following is a short program that takes a moisture value we read as dry and gives a red neopixel reading if the
reading falls below this dry amount.

Your MakeCode screen should have the following MakeCode program loaded.

The value read by the Circuit Playground Express is set to a level that might be a good dry soil value 1500 . This
number can be adjusted to give a better accuracy.

Load this program into the Circuit Playground Express via Microsoft MakeCode. (https://adafru.it/D1f)

https://adafru.it/D1f
https://adafru.it/D1f

Ensure you have your plant monitor hooked up as done on the Build page.

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For Windows
Click on the console output and see what reading is being printed out.

Click on the Show console Device button and look at the output values. With the moisture monitor hooked up, the
reading should be somewhat greater than about 890 .

Manual Calibration, All Platforms

Typical values: 890 or so with no alligator clip, 2160 for an alligator clip and 3 inch nail, 2600 in my dry(ish) pot with
plant, You can set it lower, the Adafruit crew has 1500 for dry soil. Your numbers may vary. Be sure you have your
Circuit Playground Express away from your body and on a dry, non-conductive surface like a countertop and keep
your hands away while making settings to ensure things are not biased by the surroundings.

If your soil is dry, then the number you have with everything hooked up and no lights, should be good for your dry soil
baseline. The larger the number, the wetter the soil. Note the number you are reading.

Change the value of the variable dry_value in the on start block to the value while the pot is dry and the lights are not
on. You can then add water to the pot which will make the number go up and the light will go off when the project
detects the soil is reading > dry_value . It may take a few tries to dial in the number perfect for your plant. This will be
your dry soil benchmark.

Any time the Circuit Playground Express reads a value the value that is the dry value or lower, it will turn all the lights
red, alerting you. If the read value is greater than dry_value , the NeoPixels will be turned off via the clear block.

Readings are taken every two seconds (2000 milliseconds) per the pause block on the bottom. If you want to increase
the idle time between readings, add additional pause blocks. If you'd like a very long time between readings, see the

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trick at the bottom of the Going Further page.

Once you have your code "dialed in" with the final dry_value , you can download the final code via Microsoft MakeCode
to the Circuit Playground Express.

Place fresh AA batteries into your battery pack.

You may now unplug the USB cable to your computer and plug in the battery pack into the black battery jack on the
Circuit Playground Express. The green On light should be glowing next to the USB jack letting you know you have
power.

Final Setup
Set your plant in its final location. Place the Circuit Playground Express so you will notice the color of the NeoPixels as
you walk by and the battery pack tucked away.

Go ahead and water your plant. The NeoPixels should be unlit. If they are still red, you'll need to go back and check
your dry_value .

You're now set to have your Circuit Playground Express monitor your plant moisture!

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Going Further
The Circuit Playground Express can alert via other NeoPixel animations. The design constraint would be how much
battery you use over time. You can adjust the NeoPixel brightness in the set brightness block - even a value of 25 is
easily seen.

If you always have a green "good" display and then it turns into a flashing red display, that's alerting. But having the
NeoPixels always on will drain battery. Using the animations defined in the LIGHT block group also gives an animated
display at the expense of battery power.

You can have a sound alert but this might become annoying. See the first code below. You can always have fun and
have it play a tune. In practice, it becomes annoying (and drains battery), so lights are best.

Assistive Technology
For a person with limited sight, the sound might prove to be a better choice. The light code could be removed to save
power and the sound stretched to a longer time.

The code below allows for much longer times without too many pause blocks. This program waits 5 minutes ( 300000
milliseconds) and makes a beep if the soil is dry. This may be better for someone who cannot see NeoPixels. Adjust
the number of milliseconds in the while loop to increase or decrease from 5 minutes. Again, the sound should be such

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that it alerts but does not annoy.

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