Catnip electronics

3,967 orders since Dec 12, 2012

Vilnius, LT, Lithuania

Ships from Lithuania.

Custom Work Available

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Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.50)

Documentation: (4.04)

Shipping: (4.38)

Communication: (4.31)

All Reviews

Harro | April 10, 2017

Reliably Moisture sensor

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

This soil moisture sensor is working well for month now. No corrosion, no deterioation of data quality. The incoming moisture data are noisy and need some filtering (i.e. moving average). Although in principle the total span would be from 0 to 1023, in my case, with my plant the aquired measurements are between 360 (dry) to 550 (wet). Its a desert plant, so it doesnt need a lot of water. The light sensor data need to much polishing so I am not using this part of the sensor.

Hrvoje | Feb. 28, 2017

Soil moisture

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Everything looks great. Soil moisture seems like a fantastic unit so far, we need to run more tests and calibration, but A+ for now. Would recommend.

Ekaterina | Feb. 26, 2017

Chirps as advertised!

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

It is hard to write any kind of verbose review here. The thing just works : )
I'm travelling a lot and rent my place while away. And chirp is infinitely better then bugging people about watering my plants over emails, for everyone involved.

Teodor | Nov. 19, 2016

Great product

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

Easy to use. Just pop-in a 2032 battery. Put in the soil, push the button and here you go. Plus it's smart enough to not wake you up.

Kaspars | Nov. 9, 2016

Simply great and effortless

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

Yesterday was the second time Chirp reminded me to water the plants. I love how it chirps "Thank you!" once you've done it.

Gabor | Sept. 19, 2016

Good product with a strange payment difficulty

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

This is a good product, excellent price/value ratio.

The temperature and the light sensors are the weekest points. They are not too accurate. I could not validate the moisture values but that seems good.

There was no attached documentation but there are plenty online so there was no problem with it.

Unfortunatelly I could not pay at Tindie webshop with my foreign (still EU) credit card. I had to repeat the payment process with PayPal (I've payed with the same credit card there). But the product arrived relatively fast after that.

Tzu-Chiang | Sept. 14, 2016

We bought 20 and the shipping never arrived to destination.

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

We bought 20 and the shipping never arrived to destination. We sent a message to ask about the situation, and received no feedback from the provider.

update: I was contacted by the provider later, (he has replied my email at the first time, but unfortunately to the editor, not to me) . After I was contacted by the provider, we agreed to ship the products via DHL. I was only requested to cover the extra cost of shipping. I received the products yesterday and the sensors were integrated immediately with the micro-controllers without problem. Great product! Thank you for helping me to solve the shipping problem.

Response from Catnip electronics | Sept. 14, 2016

Hello,

You did not answer my question - Did you try contacting Chile post about the package?

Ioannis | Aug. 23, 2016

About the soil moisture sensor

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Hello , we have purchased 5 X I2C soil moisture sensor but unfortunately they do not work as expected. We are using them to measure the VWC in the soil , but the sensor worked for 3 days and later it just stopped working and was giving various indications and not correct. We have compare this sensor with high accuracy sensor and we concluded that the parts we bought are not OK . Hope the manufacturer could give us a solution to this and replace them .

Regards

Response from Catnip electronics | Aug. 24, 2016

Hello,

I will gladly replace you the non-functional sensor, just provide me with your order number. BTW, please note that you have to apply additional coating before use.

Rodrigo | Aug. 17, 2016

Excellent quality product and easy to buy

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

This is for an automatic farm irrigation application using the TI launchpad MSP430. I soldered one sensor to 4 meters of UTP CAT6 cable and worked fine in the I2C bus, only issues were related to typos in my code :).

The sensor has a very profesional finishing, esthetically looks nice.

The sensor give a lecture of approximately 320 at open air and 750 in a glass of water, so this is a good sensitivity range to develop instrumentation around soil moisture.

Buying this sensor was easy, the shipment was done the next day after payment and got safe to my house in UK.
I'd buy more of this sensors.

Jay | July 1, 2016

great sensor, 3D printed housing

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

This is a great sensor for monitoring soil moisture in lawn and garden applications. I made a 3D printed housing that allows me to waterproof the sensor so it can be completely buried in the soil for long-term deployment .
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1654677

Francois | June 18, 2016

Coating protection

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Hi
What do you suggest as coating protection on PCB.
Do you have a specific product to suggest ?
The product is good but an efficient coating is needed to make it last.
Thanks

Marc | June 17, 2016

Great Product

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I purchased two of the sensors to use them with an ESP8266. After some troubles getting it to run with the ESP8266 they work absolutely perfect. The linked library worked out of the box with an Arduino, so it was definitely the I2C implementation of the SMING library for the ESP8266 .
The build quality is really good, so I think and hope they will do the job for a long time.
Thanks for providing that product to us.
Shipment was also really fast.

Jan | June 15, 2016

Very use full and reliable soil moisture sensor

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

After a few weeks of testing, my impression is, that the I2C soil moisture sensor is a use full and reliable sensor. The moisture reading is obviously an indication of the amount of water in the soil. The difference between "dry", "moist"and "wet" is clear (several hundred "steps")
and can easily be used for watering or just sending out an alarm when time is.
The moisture reading is reasonable reproducible. I have not tested the temperature sensor as such, but it seems to be OK.

I'm sing a JeeNode running at 3,3V to connect to the sensor. The provided Arduino example at github is working out of the box. Remember though to add two pull-up resistors for the I2C bus.

The combination of a battery powered JeeNode and the soil moisture sensor makes up a nice wireless system for your garden.

Next step will be to cover the whole senor with some kind of adhesive lined heat shrink tubing to see if I can make the sensor water-proof for out door use - and still get use full readings.

In other words, a great product - I will for sure buy more when needed.

Jan

Rickard | June 15, 2016

Really nice product

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

After tried some cheap soil moisture sensors from ebay that i didnte get good values from a friend find this one and now i have 4 sensors in 4 differents plants and connected to one Particle Photon that then sending data to my webserver and i now working on a dashboard for it.

I have trying to do a good dokumentation for others to see for future projects on github: https://github.com/MyOrchard/SmartWatering-Hardware

Jeremy | June 15, 2016

Good little sensor

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Works well and is easy to use. Definitely needs the additional waterproofing recommended in the docs.

Victor | May 25, 2016

I´m building a device for monitoring humidity soil.

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Is the second time I buy this sensor, I like that!!

I´m doing an device for the final work of the master. I have a "funduino" MEGA with four resistive sensor and three chirps. I´m having some problem with the code and the three chirps, It´s the first time I´m try to connect three chirps and other sensors. I´m using RTC and microSD card to stock sensor data. I´m feeding that with an adapter (9v/1A), the resistive sensor get into 5v intermittently, and the chirps get into 5v continually.
I changed the address of the three chirp (20,21,39), I don´t geting the reading of the chirp (65535,-10,65535). I think that a problem with energy but I´m not sure.
Can you help me??
Thanks, and sorry for my english.

Ashish | May 23, 2016

Pretty good perform at par or even better than expensive one

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Thanks for making this very useful product. I am using it now for more than 2 weeks and it's doing pretty good. I just wished if it could come weatherproof, I had to put epoxy as it did not look solid otherwise.
The readings are pretty consistent and in fact I had find better than sensors like VH400, which has better sensitivity across range however, suffer from variations outside of VH400 data spec: I need to put outlier detection.
So far I like them and I just wish if it could packaged more weather proof
thanks

Carl | May 16, 2016

Best soil sensor so far

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Everything works great. Only thing I can think of that is on the negative side is that the product description is wrong - the temperature sensor is not at the pointy end but is acctualy sitting where it will be above ground. Too bad since my secondary objective was soil temperature. Otherwise great stuff!

Craig | May 9, 2016

Excellent Product - Super Pleased Customer.

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I purchased 4 of these units and I will be buy more.

I am presently using them in a plant propagation misting chamber where one is embedded in potting medium to monitor soil moisture and ambient air temperature while the other is suspending in the air at the 45 degree angle and is being used as leaf wetness sensor. Although not designed as leaf wetness sensors they provide a predictably linear response ranging from about 307 for dry to about 385 for totally soaking wet. Far more cost effective than other dielectric leaf wetness sensors and way easier to interface to!

I painted the sensors with latex paint and thoroughly coated the electronics with clear plasti-dip. So far so good.

Love the I2C interface! I had it connected to a raspberry pi and reading data in just a few minutes.

Shipping to Canada was faster than expected.

I had a couple of questions regarding my "off label' use as a leaf wetness sensor and they were answered very promptly.

Sebastian | May 2, 2016

Great Idea turned into a product!

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Got an I2C Soil Moisture Sensor – and it worked right away.

The parcel was well packaged, the seller even sorted out a shipping issue at their own expense. Thanks again for that.

I consider this sensor well researched and developed. The design files make it clear that the designer did not simply go for the obvious textbook solution, as that apparently didn't prove practical. Instead, the sensor appears to opt for a robust and reliable method.

I had the chance to directly compare this sensor to two other soil moisture sensors, including one other microcontroller-driven capacitive probe that had also been implemented directly on a PCB. This I2C Soil Moisture Sensor easily beat them, providing a reproducible and noise-immune reading.

Sebastian | April 19, 2016

Does exactly what it is supposed to do

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I'll be using the device to build an automatic plant watering system. My first tests were successfull and I'm looking forward to having a bunch of tomatos and peppers in the summer. Using the arduino library available at https://github.com/Apollon77/I2CSoilMoistureSensor is highly recommended.

Benjamin | April 19, 2016

Cool gadget

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

Cool little gadget to monitor soil moisture and chirp when it is time to water the plants! Will buy more

Rene | April 7, 2016

Perfect

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Very fast delivery, very nice device! Everything works fine for me! Nice device, thanks to the developer!

Tony | April 5, 2016

Great little sensor

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

As far as I can tell this sensor uniquely uses capacitive sensing rather than resistive so should be much more stable long term. The sensor also has temperature and light sensing which is a bonus. It is super easy to use - I got it working in 30m on a particle photon using standard i2c apis. The board is well designed and just needs some way to water proof the electronics end for which the designer gives some ideas. Shipping was fast to UK. Thanks for making this available Albertas.

Robin | Feb. 29, 2016

Thanks for a great product!

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Great piece of useful electronics. Works as claimed. However can improve on aspects such as size and usability.

Dietmar | Feb. 29, 2016

Very happy with the sensor.

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

The capacitive sensing part is a bit short but should work ok for the initial testing. I am planning to design my own sensor with a longer sensing area to measure deeper in the ground.
Perfect for indoor pot plants though.
Thanks a lot for making this design available for others to use. Very much appreciated :)

Jean-Philippe | Jan. 6, 2016

Great product, really easy to interface with

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I already interfaced it with some bare-metal C code, Espruino, Arduino, ... The sensor is easy to handle.

I noticed a weakness in term of insulation. Does anyone tried to coat that sensor with a potting resin / hot glue / beeswax ?

I am currently building an autonomous watering project based on that sensor. If you are curious, just follow this link: https://github.com/yerpj/SmartWatering

Gilles | Dec. 28, 2015

Realy good product

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I use it with my arduino mega, it works great
And capacitive sensor Will never corode like others simple resistive sensor
I 've put 4 stars because i'm think it 's a little bit expensive..

T | Dec. 1, 2015

Amazing product

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

Great value for money, this tiny system just works. Once you know how to get the battery in and have set the moisture level, you are good to go. I will order more of these for my other plants. Great work!

It would be great if it had a plastic casing which can protect the electronic part with the battery. A small manual (if it is given as a present), is more than welcome.

Mihai | Nov. 28, 2015

Review of v2.7.1

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

First off, amazing product!

Finishing is really good and includes a silkscreen, professionally made. Good job.
I did seem to have a bit of trouble with it when using it with the Particle Photon. I needed to explicitly start the communication by calling begin (), so the beginTransmission(addr) was not enough.

A real shame is the time it took to get here (Germany). 8 days?! Can you please also add an express shipping option? The postman could not find me at home and could not leave it at my neighbour's because you sent it "registered" (only the addressee can pick it up).

Overall; crappy transport, amazing product!

Cheers,
Mihai

Geoff | Oct. 31, 2015

Works perfectly, fast shipping :)

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I purchased 3 soil sensors and they arrived in New Zealand within a week.

I would add though, that the Raspberry Pi doesn't appear to need to pull up resistors, and works fine on the 3.3 volt I2C pins.

To get the I2C hardware functionality working, I followed these steps: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-4-gpio-setup/configuring-i2c

I then used the Raspberry Pi code sample provided by Gerald, and it immediately started working. It would be great if the official documentation was updated with a Raspberry Pi example.

You can't use Python 3.x for this though - the Adafruit libraries don't appear to support it.

Other than that, it's a fantastic gadget :)

Justin | Oct. 27, 2015

update to my previous review

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

After speaking to the seller directly about an issue, I wanted to update my previous review and add that the overall value of the product, price, shipping, service, is amazing!! Thank you for all the help!!

Justin | Oct. 26, 2015

great product

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

So far all of the measurements are consistent which is much better than the crap devices on amazon that were not reliable

Klavs | Oct. 26, 2015

Great product for automatic watering system.

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I am making automatic gardener for my indoor plants. I am using Arduino Micro for control and small pump for watering. Before I used standalone version of this sensor, but I2C connection was hard to get. This model is perfect to read measures trough serial protocol. Sensor is working great and gives precise moisture values.

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